The New Normal
by juliedean
Summary: Beth awoke without memories in a world of walking dead with only a knife, a water bottle and a head wound. After surviving for two years, she's found by Daryl Dixon and follows him to meet those claiming to be her family. But she carries a dangerous secret in tow. People come back from the dead all the time, but can she come back to life? Canon until 5.15 "Try" Very slow burn
1. Bloodstains

A/N: This is my first full-length fic and I have been putting off posting it for a long time because I've been nervous about how it would be received. It will be a very slow burn, but hopefully it will be worth it! Reviews (both good and bad), PMs, Follows and Favorites are all greatly appreciated.

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

Companion song for this chapter: "Nothing Like You and I"- The Perishers (I do not own the rights to this song, it just helps animate this chapter.)

Thanks for reading!Chapter 1: Bloodstains

"You take the west sector, try to see if you can find anything in that airport. Might have been totally cleaned out like Ronald Regan International was, but we might get lucky," Aaron rambled on about the plans.

"Doc said we were low on antibiotics so keep a sharp eye out for them. I'll go east and try to see if there is anyone holed up along the river. Let's meet back up at the hospital before sunset. I want to find a good vantage point to see if there's movement in there. If we don't see anyone, we can go in tomorrow and see what meds we can grab before heading back home," Aaron said as he pointed to the map to show the location of the hospital.

Briefly glancing down at the map, Daryl grunted in agreement before turning and stomping off the edge of the highway. Aaron noted that Daryl had taken off his trademark angel wing vest about a year ago and still hadn't put it back on. He wanted to ask Daryl why he no longer wore the leather vest but he could already predict Daryl's glare in response to the personal question.

Aaron knew Daryl's distant attitude was not a reflection on him so he merely smiled and shouted, "Stay safe!" to Daryl's back.

Daryl turned back to Aaron, shielding his eyes from the morning sun. He had grown quite fond of Aaron over the last few years, despite his tendency to talk too much. They had become friends during their numerous multi-day recruiting trips. Daryl could just imagine the ignorant, homophobic comments Merle would make if he were still around.

"You too, man," Daryl said honestly, giving Aaron a slight nod.

Today, they were going further out than ever before to scout for various items and for "good" people to bring back to The Safe Zone. Daryl was still not fully convinced that good people still existed. Everyone had their demons, and in this world everyone had blood on their hands.

But he liked his job because it got him outside of the fences.

After Rick took over Alexandria, once again assuming the leadership role that came so naturally to him, many people got new jobs—Michonne left the police team for the supply runs and Carol abandoned her weak-ass-old-lady-act to begin patrols. Daryl kept his job because it had the most freedom. He grew up running to the woods to seek refuge from his abusive dad and now he left the refuge of Alexandria to evade his family's pitying looks and attempts to cheer him up. He almost snorted at the irony of it.

He still remembered what Joe had said when he was walking with the claimers: "The saddest thing is seeing an outdoor cat thinking it's an indoor cat." Daryl is definitely an outdoor cat, so this job was perfect for him.

It had been over two years since he lost Beth but it still hurt just as much as the very first day. He knew that saying: "time heals all wounds," but it was bullshit. The pain from Merle, Sophia, Dale, Hershel…from everyone else had indeed decreased.

But Beth was different.

She was definitely not "just another dead girl" as she had shouted at him outside the moonshine shack several years ago.

The shock was fresh each morning when he woke up and had forgotten that she was gone. The grief overwhelmed him every single night that she wasn't laying in the same room with him. His sorrow was almost palpable whenever he walked through the Alexandria library where the piano was. The sadness reverberated inside him, like an echo rocking through his empty chest, with each of Judith's giggles or big family dinners that she missed.

The time seemed to elapse as the archer trekked silently through woods thinking about Beth. The chill of the morning had begun to dissolve into the warmth of midday. His black jeans and long flannel shirt were getting uncomfortable. So he stripped off his top shirt as he walked, leaving on a gray t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. It was summer and dried twigs were scattered along the forest ground. He had to walk carefully to avoid crunching loudly through the brush, but he enjoyed the woods like this. The more focused he was on a task, the less energy he had left to fixate on his grief.

After a little over an hour of walking, coming across only two lone walkers, he saw the break in the trees that signified the airport was near.

Daryl had never been on a plane, never even been to an airport before the dead started roaming the earth, but he knew that the long runways needed excess space. This made him nervous because it meant that he would not have any tree cover as he approached the main building. If anyone was in there, they would be able to see him coming.

He decided to wait just inside the tree line for a while to see if he could see any movement through the large glass windows.

The hunter pulled his nearly empty pack off his back as he lithely squatted down and leaned against a tree. The pack only contained a few bottles of water, a few cans of food, the flare gun and the envelope full of pictures from Alexandria. Daryl pulled out one of the tepid bottles of water and drank carefully—he didn't want to run out of water in case they ran into trouble on the drive home.

As he sat staring at the building, ears straining to hear any movement in the woods around him, his hand drifted unconsciously to his pocket and pulled out the small silver charm. He flipped it over and over in his hand in a manner that had become habitual for him over the past two years. Fiddling with this silver piece had become more and more of a routine as cigarettes had gotten scarcer. Glenn had complained about Daryl's new habit at first, teasing that his smoking was less annoying, until he saw what the charm was. That shut Glenn right up.

He hoped after this raid of the airport he would be leaving with a pack full of meds and clothes. Colder months were approaching, and the winters were much worse here in Virginia than they had been in Georgia. He wanted to find some jackets for the community and they desperately needed clothes for Judith, who was growing like a weed, and Maggie who just announced she was pregnant at last Friday's family dinner.

Everyone had been sitting around the table in the house he shared with the Grimes family. Glenn had banged his fork on his glass and said he had an announcement like a damn conductor. He had a grin so big that Daryl thought it looked like he had a coat hanger stuck in his mouth as he looked at Maggie and said, "We're pregnant!"

Tara and Carol had both jumped up and grabbed the couple in a huge embrace. Carl had exclaimed, "Awesome!" before picking Judith up out of her chair. Rick and Michonne quickly glanced at each other before sweeping into the jumble of hugs and shoulder pats.

Daryl, however, couldn't bring himself to feel happy about the news. It was yet another moment that Beth was missing.

The Greene sisters had a solid relationship before the fall of the prison and he knew that Beth would have been ecstatic about Maggie's pregnancy. In fact, he remembered sitting on the porch of the moonshine shack with Beth. She had talked about Maggie and Glenn getting pregnant and how much she wished Hershel could be there to see his grandchildren. Now his heart ached because neither Hershel nor Beth would be there to see the newest member of their family. Daryl felt a knot of guilt in his stomach; he was responsible for both of their deaths. He could picture the warm smile that would have made Beth's big blue eyes light up, he knew how much she would have fussed over Maggie as her stomach grew and could imagine her singing to the baby like she did for Judith. It was a happy moment for the entire group…but without Beth the celebration just felt empty.

In fact, each day without her felt incomplete. When she died, so unexpectedly, Daryl didn't really lose her all in that moment. He continued to lose bits of her everyday, the little pieces of her tearing bits of his soul away with them. People slowly stopped mentioning her, he stopped finding individual strands her long blonde hair weaved into his clothing, and he felt certain that the singing voice he remembered was just a pale comparison to the real thing.

If he had known the last time he saw her would have been the last time, he would have memorized the pattern of blue in her eyes. If he had known that the last time he carried her into the kitchen would be the last time he touched her alive, he would have never set her down.

Daryl looked down at his feet, trying to clear his head but instead he saw the black and white shoelaces around his ankles and smiling slightly. He had replaced the laces several times; shoelaces were one of the many casualties that resulted from regularly running from walkers through overgrown forests. But every time he got new laces, he always made sure one was black and one was white. He still remembered the day Beth—

Just then, a walker stumbled out of the woods and onto the tarmac on the far left side of his vision and pulled Daryl from his thoughts.

Since the walker wasn't headed his direction and it seemed to be alone, he decided to just let it continue walking. He wasn't willing to reveal his position yet. He was curious to see if any people would come out of the building to take out the walker and his dark blue eyes meticulously searched the windows for any flutters of movement. He was fortunate that the sun wasn't facing in a direction that caused a glare on any of the windows. No one came. The walker, groaning quietly, continued shuffling past the airport along one of the runways.

Based on the position of the sun, Daryl estimated that he had been leaning against the tree for over an hour but still hadn't seen even a flicker of movement inside the airport.

He decided that he would stay hidden in the tree line as he did a perimeter check of the airport. It wasn't a large building, nothing like the Ronald Regan International one Aaron and Daryl had been to a few months back, so he knew it wouldn't take long to circle around to the back of the building.

From this distance, he could see plenty of cars in the airport parking lot, people who had likely been hoping to fly out of this mess at the beginning of the turn. Daryl wondered briefly if there had been a place to fly to safety, some distant island that the virus hadn't reached. He shook this thought away. The whole world was screwed, he knew it.

Daryl finally left the sanctuary of the trees, crossbow ready as he walking through the parking lot as he approached the building. Most of the cars in the lot were in fairly bad condition, windows smashed, doors left open, which lead Daryl to believe that others had already scavenged this place. Daryl peeked into one of the only cars that still had all it's windows intact, this is the car he would have chosen as a getaway vehicle if needed. He didn't see any packs or anything that would indicate that people were using the car. But there was still something more…

Something was off.

The hair on the back of his neck seemed to stand up as he glanced around.

He definitely felt twitchy, felt the heat on his neck like he was being watched. Daryl had much experience watching others so he knew the feeling; the last few years he spent as a recruiter, following people for days and determining if he should ask them to return to Alexandria. But that couldn't be it, he had been here for hours and hadn't seen any movement or any signs of people. But there was something more… something different.

Finally standing flush with the side of the building he peered through the windows into the area marked "Baggage Claim." There were faded advertisements along the far wall for companies that belonged to a past world. Most of the bags lay open on the ground, scattered across the tile and along big conveyor belts. Items were pulled haphazardly out of the suitcases, sprawling across the floor. It had definitely been raided already but it looked sloppy. Daryl guessed that whoever had searched the airport had been in a hurry, which means they had likely missed things. He decided that it was still worth it to search the bags so he continued his inspection as he searched for a door that he could enter through.

Daryl looked closer at the pavement outside along the "Pick Up/Drop Off" point.

That's when he spotted it: bloodstains.

It was walker blood, he could tell from the dark black color. The blood was dried.

But there were no walker bodies.

Someone had been here. They had cleared it of walkers and then removed the bodies to avoid the smell and to prevent attracting more walkers. But the bloodstains couldn't be washed away without nature's help.

He tried to think back to the last time it had rained. It had been more than a month since the last rainfall which meant that these people had cleared the airport sometime between now and last month.

Daryl contemplated these odds. The likelihood that people had stayed put in a place like this for over a month were pretty slim. The windows made it easy to see if anyone was approaching but there were no walls or fences to keep walkers away. Plus, he had been outside for over two hours at this point and hadn't seen any movement.

Daryl decided to push inside. They really needed supplies.

He silently edged into a small side door; the bolt in his crossbow was ready to fly. This door had been pulled shut but not locked and luckily it didn't make a sound when it opened. As Daryl glanced around the empty building, his eyes landed on the other doors. There were chains and locks on more than one.

Someone had definitely lived in here.

"Dammit," Daryl muttered under his breath, kind of hoping that the people had moved on already.

He was supposed to be scavenging for materials and Aaron was supposed to find the people. Aaron was so much better at talking to the groups they found. Daryl was awful with words and at relating to people. But he knew searching the luggage would have to wait until he cleared the building.

Daryl steeled himself and started heading further into the building. It was only two stories but the ceiling seemed to be over 50 feet high. The second level had a balcony that looked over into the main lobby that Daryl was standing in. There was a huge metal bunny statue that hung from the ceiling. His footsteps were silent as he walked across the tile; it was lucky the hunter was skilled at a light tread because any noise he made would certainly echo through this large space.

He could see that there were several heavy metal doors, he counted 8, on the first floor behind check-in counters with worthless computers on them. People could be hiding behind those doors but that wouldn't be very smart. If walkers pushed in, the first floor would be overrun easily and they would be trapped back there. Daryl would set up on an upper level—easier to protect from walkers and people.

As he came around the corner he saw the staircases.

_Damn these people were smart_, he admitted.

The staircases were completely blocked. They had tied hundreds of those black, retractable queue dividers around the poles leading up the stairs. It formed multiple barricades up the stairs. Walkers would be able to eventually push through or tumble over the barricades but it would take so long that the people who lived here would have plenty of time to escape through an alternate route in the back.

Unfortunately it didn't exactly stop the living people.

Daryl swung his legs over barriers going up the stairs. As he got to the second level he reached the "Security Check Point", the now-useless x-ray machines were unmoved and countless gray plastic bins were stacked to form a makeshift wall. Again, this would slow down the walkers and make a ton of noise if pushed over, but it wouldn't do much to stop Daryl from getting through.

But as he went to step through the metal detector, he paused. It was too easy. The metal detector was the only way to reach the rest of the airport and they weren't blocked by anything? Daryl squatted down and in the gleam of afternoon sun he could see a clear, ultra-thin wire running about six inches from the floor. It was just high enough to catch someone's foot as they passed through. He glanced to the side and saw that it was a trip wire that was rigged to what he guessed was explosives. If it had been dark, Daryl wouldn't have been able to see the wire.

_Definitely smart, but not smart enough. _He thought smugly as he carefully stepped over this trap too.

On the other side of security, was a long hallway with the gates and a few shops. There were more windows along both sides of the terminal and rows of chairs bolted to the floor on either side of the hallway.

This place felt huge. Daryl liked it. It was inside, protected from the elements, but the full windows and tall ceilings made it almost possible for him to pretend he was outside.

There was a small shop to his left with souvenirs, books, magazines, and candy. Daryl stepped into the store, he saw that the coolers that used to hold drinks were emptied and most of the candy and snacks were missing too. The stupid souvenir section, shot glasses, teddy bears and miniature statues, were untouched or smashed on the floor. He grabbed a small teddy bear for Judith and stuffed it quickly in his pack, along with an open pack of cigarettes he found on the floor.

The magazines remaining on the shelf and scattered around the floor featured scantily dressed celebrities, who were undoubtedly dead now, with headlines that shouted "Get a toned tummy in 3 weeks!" and "Red Hot Spring Trends!"

_That stupid shit was useless even before the end of the world,_ he judged.

There was something strange about the store in the back corner. As Daryl stood in front of the shelf containing the novels, he tried to determine what had caught his attention. He noticed the area seemed to be organized. Some of the spines of books were creased. The books had been read and then placed carefully back onto the shelf. Some of the books seemed to not belong to the store either. There were 30 copies of certain books: "Mockingjay", "The Tiger's Wife", "A Dog's Purpose." But there were other books that only had 1 copy, like they had been taken from someone's house: "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind", "The Diary of Anne Frank", "Edible and Wild Plants."

Someone had definitely lived here for a while if they had gotten comfortable enough to set up a library. And then he realized there was no dust on these shelves. People had cleaned them off, very recently.

It was this fact that had Daryl turning around, prepared to leave the airport. He needed to get out so that he could watch them, get a read on them, and see how big their group was before deciding whether or not to approach them. People had lived here and maybe they still did. Perhaps they had gone for a supply run and that was why Daryl hadn't seen them. Either way, Daryl suddenly felt like he was in hostile territory.

As he stepped out of the shop back into the terminal, he saw movement out of the corner of his left eye.

_Here we go. Time to recruit_, he thought to himself.

He put his crossbow over his shoulder and raised his hands into the universal surrender position.

"Keep your hands up! Don't even think about reaching for that knife on your hip," said an intense female voice.

"Turn around, slowly. Tell me what you're doin' here and how many people you have waitin' in the woods for you," the woman said again. Warmth seemed to envelop him at the sound of it…

It was familiar.

Daryl turned slowly towards the voice, keeping his hands raised, and beginning his prepared Alexandria recruiter sales pitch.

"My name is Daryl Dix—," his voice died in his throat as he faced his recruit.

His mind seemed to simultaneously freeze and jump into over-drive.

Daryl took her all in.

Her honey blonde hair was pulled back into a long braid that swept over her shoulder. The white tee was pulled tight across her thin body—she looked like nothing but muscle and bones—and it had a few traces of blood and dirt on it. She wore tight, dark jeans that looked impossibly new and worn black leather boots. Her pale face, with small white scars on her head and cheek, was stretched into a frown. Her bright blue eyes had an unfamiliar look in them; cold and wary. They examined Daryl with caution and indecision…

Even with this foreign expression in her eyes, she was still the most stunningly beautiful woman Daryl had ever seen. His dreams for the last few years were barely a dull reflection of the actual girl in front of him now. Small wisps of hair had come loose from her braid. The light shone through the windows behind her, illuminating her, surrounding her like a halo.

_She is an angel. I must be hallucinating_, he thought.

His heart sped up, beating faster than a hummingbird's wings.

"Beth?" Daryl almost whispered, as if scared that speaking too loudly would break the illusion. But the question managed to fill the entire space surrounding them.

There was a flash of recognition in her eyes before it morphed into confusion. Her eyebrows furrowed, causing her forehead to wrinkle slightly.

There were a multitude of weapons on her small frame: a large knife strapped around her left thigh, a smaller knife in a hip sheath, a Recurve Bow and a quiver of arrows slung across her back and a Glock 19 in her hands. The gun was pointing straight at Daryl.

He ignored it.

_She is alive!_

Daryl's body seemed to act of its own accord. His hands slowly dropped and his feet began propelling him forward.

"Beth!" he said again, this time louder, certain now that it was really her. Or at least willing to lose himself in his delusion, if he was losing his mind this was a good way to go.

He was quickly closing the large gap between them but she still hadn't lowered the gun. _Why isn't she running towards me? Why is she looking at me with such shock and suspicion?_ The thoughts raced through his mind and his instincts were screaming at him that something was wrong. But his body didn't listen and it continued to fly across the white tile towards her.

She shouted, "Who the hell are you? Morgan! Lucky! Help!"

Then, just as he reached to embrace her… she punched him right in the face.

A/N: Dun dun dun! Hope y'all liked it!  
In case anyone is curious, the location of the airport was based on Stafford Regional Airport in Virginia (I did a lot of research on it, because I am a nerd). Although, I've never actually been there so I can't vouch for the accuracy of my portrayal.  
_All reviews are welcome and appreciated_. I expect to update pretty regularly—every week give or take—but more reviews/follows/favorites would definitely motivate me ;)

-J. Dean


	2. Allies

**A/N: This chapter takes place 2 years before Chapter 1. **All the other chapters will move on from _this_ point in time (S5 MSF) forward; chapter 1 was a "flash forward" but I already have the Daryl/Beth reunion planned from Beth's POV! ;)

There are some changes in POV in this chapter; it should be pretty clear but let me know if it's confusing so I can fix it in future chapters!

Thank you so much to: Lollie Lovegood, Emberka-2012, rogue76, Heidi191976, The Cat's Meow92 and the guests who reviewed (to answer one of the guest's questions: it is canon UNTIL S5 E15 "Try" from that point it becomes an AU from the show). And to **all** the wonderful followers of this story, you make my heart happy (:

Companion songs: "I Fought in a War"- Belle &amp; Sebastian and "The Cascades"- Fleet Foxes

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

Reviews, Follows and Favorites make my week. Thanks for reading!

/

**Chapter 2: Allies**

_**Two years earlier**_

Pain.

Instantaneous, searing, white hot, pain.

It was the only thing that existed.

There was nothing. There was no brilliant, shinning light. There was no long, dark tunnel. There were no pictures flashing through her mind's eye. There was no feeling of peace or even a sense of time passing. Only agony. Wasn't death supposed to be peaceful?

The pressure on her head felt like she was 1,000 feet underwater.

It was a misery so fierce that it overpowered all other senses. She couldn't even tell if she had any limbs, couldn't even attempt to open her eyes. Fire raged through her chest feeling like her organs were going to shrivel into ash, trying and failing to completely fill her lungs.

Unconsciousness claimed her and she slipped into a void.

/

The sound of growling was the first thing that she ever heard.

_What is that noise?_ was her first thought.

She couldn't seem to open her eyes. She did not know why, but instinct said she needed to open them. Slowly, her eyelids fluttered open for the first time. It was bright. Pure sunshine surrounded her, warming her cold extremities. Her limbs were stiff and did not seem to cooperate with her brain. She decided to wait patiently in order to let her body adjust to coming out of the void.

When her cloudy blue eyes adjusted to the light, she saw that she was in a… _car_. It was a large cab, beige colored fabric covered the ceiling and there were tons of… _buttons_.

She didn't know how she knew these words but they seemed to emerge out of her fuzzy brain after some coaxing.

After a long time, her icy fingers came to life. She raised her left hand into her field of vision. It was pale and she could see her blue veins through her translucent skin. Her short nails seemed to be a faded purple shade. There was also dried blood under her nails. The other hand soon flittered into motion as well, but this one was wrapped in thick white plaster. Her hands moved around the cab. They were searching for something without her conscious thought. Finally, her right hand landed on the hilt of a knife and she let out a breath of relief that she didn't know she'd been holding.

_Why do I have a knife?_ was her next thought.

Then her hands explored her own person. Her uninjured hand found a small, freshly stitched wound on her neck; there was some sticky substance that had seeped out of it and she winced slightly as she touched it. On her face she felt more stitches on her left cheek and above her right eye, neither set hurt but they did itch. As her fingers grazed over a bandage on the back of her skull, her head throbbed painfully and black spots popped up in front of her eyes. There was no fear, only confusion and annoyance.

_This must be why I am moving so slowly_, she reasoned.

The growling outside had increased in volume now. She didn't know why, but suddenly she felt as if she was in a hurry, instinct telling her she needed to get out of this car. Her body moved excruciatingly slow, her head began to swim and her eyes watered in pain as she sat up in the seat. There was a large bloodstain on the seat where her head had been. As the universe stopped spinning, she could focus more clearly on her surroundings. Out of the front window she saw a long expanse of road lined with trees. She found a full canteen on the floor and she picked it up. It was silver and fit in a tan leather sheath with a large D burnt into the side. The leather had a loop that would attach to her belt; she noticed that the knife's black sheath had a similar burn mark on the back and loop. Warm water streamed down her throat and a sigh of contentment escaped her lips.

She looked around the cab, but it was devoid of anything else useful.

All she had in this world was her warm bottle of water, a hunting knife and the clothes on her back.

Somehow though, this knowledge didn't frighten her.

/

Down the road, unbeknownst to her, two men approached her tomb.

"That's it," said a low voice as the red fire engine came into view.

The pair had been walking down highway 85 for only half a day. When Rick's group left with Noah, he asked if anyone wanted to come with them. Dr. Steven Edwards immediately blanched at the thought of trying to leave Grady Memorial. He had seen so many rotters in his time, patients he lost while at Grady and the ones that endlessly circled the hospital hunting for flesh. He was scared to leave the shelter of the hospital. He had been safely in its confines since the very start of the outbreak. Why would he leave now with a group of strangers?

Not a single person accepted Rick's offer.

He was surprised.

_Why didn't the wards leave?_ he wondered.

The cost of living in the hospital was high for the wards, and their prospect of ever 'repaying their debts' was impossible; therefore they were essentially prisoners. Dr. Edwards figured this must mean it is much worse outside these walls. The wards would know, they had all been plucked up from their lives out there in order to be dragged here "for the greater good" as Dawn would have said. If this was the place they would choose to stay, it must be really terrible out there.

The large, grungy group had turned and left the hospital then. The doctor had watched from the 6th story window as they were reunited with 10 others in the parking lot. They all had tears in their eyes after seeing Beth's still, lifeless body. One woman actually crumpled to the floor in despair.

Dr. Edwards realized that this group truly loved each other; they became a family in the face of the apocalypse.

_They are strong… I should have gone with them. _

Regret and desperation filled him at this recognition.

The thought occurred to him at the exact moment that a hoard of rotters came around the corner towards them. He watched as the group began taking down rotters while moving as a unit to pile into the fire truck. He noticed with a pang of admiration that they took Beth's body with them instead of leaving her as a distraction to become rotter food. Dr. Edwards lost sight of the truck as it pulled out of town towards the freeway.

_That was it. That was my only chance and I lost it_, he thought with surrender.

As he left his office to rejoin his own people, he noticed the palpable shift in the atmosphere within the hospital. He walked down the hallway but he didn't hear a single noise. The silence was piercing.

When he arrived on the 5th floor again, he heard voices in the cafeteria and he slowed his footsteps down so they would not echo down the linoleum halls. Dr. Edwards stopped just outside of the open door. He could hear clipped, whispered voices from his place in the hallway.

"We should just kill them all. I don't know why Dawn kept these weak, useless people around for so long," said the first gruff voice.

"I agree, I think we could make it better on our own. Less mouths to feed that way," said another voice. He recognized the voice as belonging to Officer Bello.

"I don't know… I say we save a few. We need someone to clean and cook. Plus that Rachel is such a fun… distraction…" said a third officer.

A chill ran down the doctor's spine at this, he knew that the officers raped women regularly. The thought of sparing someone's life with the sole purpose of making them into a sex slave was despicable. Dr. Edwards needed to do something. He needed to save his patients and himself from this awful place, but he didn't know how. He felt trapped as he tried to think of options, escape plans.

His mind came up empty.

He chanced a glance around the door. Officer Shepard had all of the wards lined up along the far wall of the cafeteria. The officers stood in a small huddle discussing their wards' fates. The light blue walls and the sunshine pouring in seemed out of place in this execution chamber. He watched, as they seemed to come to a vote.

"Okay, that decides it. We will just kill them all and start fresh; we won't keep Rachel because she knows too much about the hospital layout, she would be a liability. We will continue to search for two new people on the outside to clean, cook and satisfy our needs," Officer Shepherd said with finality.

That's when the gunshots started exploding in his eardrums.

They were open firing on the wards.

Without a second thought for his patients that had already entered the world of the dead, Dr. Edwards turned away from the open doorway and ran, trusting the sound of gunfire to cover his footsteps.

He burst into his office and grabbed his large black backpack. He was on autopilot, his hands flying across the room without really seeing them. The doctor shoved every medical tool and medicine bottle that he touched into his pack. He had never been happier that he had begun hoarding food one year ago; taking a can here and there over the past year meant no one ever noticed or the officers blamed it on various wards. He stood on his desk and pushed up one of the ceiling panels. He grabbed the canned food and the six bottles of water and added them to his bag. Lastly, he grabbed the small knife. It wasn't much, certainly not enough to protect him from rotters for long, but it was all he had right now. He had gotten it five months ago off of a patient. The officers had missed this knife in a man's large cowboy boots and when the doctor discovered it, he decided to keep it.

That was it. It was time to go.

He went back into the hall and he could still hear the officers talking in the cafeteria—fighting already about who should drag the dead bodies to the elevator shaft. Dr. Edwards quietly rushed towards the other end of the hall with his white coat flying behind him like a cape. But he was no superhero. He had been unable to save any of his patients.

_You're a sorry excuse for a doctor_, he berated himself.

The only unlocked stairwell was just around the next corner. It led down to where the patrol cars were parked but he knew that all the car keys were locked in Dawn's office. He would just have to make it on foot out of the city until he found another car. He was a smart man, he figured he could hotwire a car if he had a few minutes. He skidded around the corner and stopped dead in his tracks.

Officer Kyle McGinley stood directly in front of the stairwell.

The officer had a large red bag and a Remmington 870 slung on his back. Keys dangled from one hand and he held tightly to an ice axe in the other.

Both men paused, taking in the sight of the other.

It was a tense moment as they were trying to determine if this would become a fight.

In an instant they both realized that the other was trying to escape.

That made them allies.

Officer McGinley waved the doctor forward with a swift, silent hand gesture. Dr. Edwards rushed into the stairwell with him. The officer used the keys to lock the door behind them.

"That should at least slow them down if they try to come after us," he said quickly as they began descending the stairs.

"Didn't happen to get the keys to a car, did you?" asked the doctor. He had to watch his feet carefully so as to not trip running down the concrete blocks.

"Nope, Shepherd had them. We'll have to hoof it," the officer said smoothly as they reached the last floor.

As McGinley swung the outside door open, there were two rotters inside the gate that started heading their direction. The officer easily took them out with two graceful swings of his axe to their heads and the doctor instantly knew that he never would have made it without this new ally.

McGinley opened the lock on the parking lot gate with his keys and the unlikely pair continued at a steady jog as they headed towards the highway.

The officer had given Dr. Edwards a machete out of his red duffel bag but he was horrible at defending against the rotters. He was having trouble keeping pace with the younger, fitter cop and his glasses kept slipping down his nose from the sweat pouring off his head. But eventually they slowed to a walk and Dr. Edwards caught his breath. Officer McGinley was much more experienced at handling the monsters, he had lived outside at the beginning of the outbreak and then regularly went on supply runs, so the doctor stood back as McGinley beheaded and stabbed every walker they came across on their way out of the city.

As the sun started to go down and the city faded into the distance, the walkers became fewer and fewer. Before night fell they found refuge in a small gas station right off of the edge of the highway. McGinley knew the place because he passed it regularly on his supply runs.

After they checked the building for rotters and locked the doors, they settled down on the floor for the night.

"I can take first watch," said the doctor.

He knew he would not be able to sleep; the accusatory faces of all the patients he failed would certainly haunt his dreams. However, he could not bring himself to feel too badly about the day. He couldn't have walked into that cafeteria without certainly getting a bullet in his skull too.

"Thanks. Killing those damn rotters all day really does make me feel half-dead," Officer McGinley joked lightly as he rubbed his hand over his scruff. Dr. Edwards was quite skilled at reading people and he could tell that the man was using humor to mask his guilt.

They fell into a heavy silence for a while. But the doctor could tell that the officer wasn't sleeping.

"How did you get out?" the doctor asked softly.

The young man sighed deeply from his place on the ground but he wasn't startled which confirmed that he hadn't been asleep. He sat up slowly and looked over at the doctor with sad brown eyes.

"I've been out on a few runs with Shepherd before and I heard her complain about having to take in the wards, caring for these people she felt were beneath her. 'Undeserving' and 'worthless' she called them. I hated that hospital every moment. I watched Gorman and Tanaka rape so many people out on runs," McGinley's voice trailed off. His normally light eyes darkened. They seemed to look out to distant time like an old man who was remembering fighting in a past war.

"It made me want to shoot them each time we were alone… but I just couldn't bring myself to commit murder…" Kyle let out a sad, disgusted scoff. The doctor couldn't tell if he was disgusted with himself for not being strong enough to stop it or the others for their actions… probably both.

"As soon as the Shepherd called everyone into the cafeteria I knew it wasn't going to be good. So I volunteered to go find you," he paused here, with a small, ashamed shrug. "Once I was out of her sight I grabbed all that I could and ran for it. Which is when I found you… So I guess I kept my promise in the end," he ended with a joking note.

The doctor didn't hold this against him.

"Well you saved me ten times over today, so how about we call it even Officer McGinley," the doctor said flatly.

"Deal! But call me Kyle, I am sick of all the 'Officer' crap, I never deserved that title anyway" Kyle said with an undertone of self-loathing before lying back down to go to sleep.

In the morning, they divided the supplies in their packs: both had a small amount of food and water, Kyle had several weapons and Dr. Edwards had medical supplies. They made sure that each man had enough supplies in case they were separated. Leaving the gas station they continued along highway 85, not entirely sure what their destination was or what they were looking for. But a few hours later they saw the fire truck.

"That's it," said the doctor pointing to the bright red fire engine. "Beth's group must have run out of gas and had to leave it here."

"No, look. There are rotters. They wouldn't be growlin' like that unless there was people inside. Maybe they're sleeping in there," said Kyle as he picked up speed with his ice axe gripped tightly in hand.

/

The growling suddenly stopped outside, as there were two loud thuds against the car door. Next thing she knew, a face popped up looking into the driver's side window.

"Beth?" expired a man in a blue button up shirt with glasses.

_That's my name_, she realized with a start.

That was the first time she ever heard her name.

This man looked at her in disbelief. It was as if she was both his greatest fear and yet a valuable treasure. The second man in a police uniform had his mouth hanging open when he caught sight of her through the window but a few seconds later he seemed to catch himself and closed his jaw with a small snap.

She felt wary of these newcomers. A flutter in her stomach seemed to warn her to tread lightly around them.

_Were these the people that left me here, who hurt me?_ she wondered as she thought of the throbbing wound on her head.

"We saw the rotters and knew that someone must still be alive inside. They normally eat and run, only hang around if there's fresh meat." said the policeman, it was clear that he was just talking to try to break the tense silence that seemed to fill the air around them. He looked shocked to see her but he had an easy smile that reflected warmth into his eyes.

Beth couldn't formulate a response to this comment.

_What is a rotter? How do they know me? _she thought vaguely.

They obviously knew her but she couldn't remember them. They both seemed to realize that something was wrong since she still hadn't said anything.

A few awkward moments passed and Beth's right hand gripped the hilt of her knife so tightly that her knuckles turned white. The cop glanced over at the doctor and seemed to realize that the doctor was in shock.

"Are you okay?" asked the officer softly to the girl who looked like an angel of death.

She didn't know what to say, she wasn't sure what the answer was. But just as she was about to say this she realized something…

She couldn't form words.

Her thoughts seemed to be moving, she instinctively knew what was required of her to speak… but it was as if the connection between her brain and her tongue had been severed.

So she merely shrugged.

Finally, the doctor came to life. He introduced himself, explained his credentials and he motioned to take a look at her wounds. She nodded reluctantly and he climbed into the cab as he began inspecting her various sets of stitches, asking her a series of yes or no questions, shining a light in her eyes and more. He seemed to be itching for a pen to write notes down on, but there was nothing like that in the car. The officer also introduced himself as he lifted into one of the front seats and quietly pulled the door shut.

Eventually Dr. Edwards seemed satisfied with his examination and began to speak directly to her.

"You were shot in the head," he decided to just dive right in, no point in sugarcoating it.

"It was a through and through, which is good but it is still a miracle that you survived. It seems as if someone stitched up the wounds, which is good. I cannot tell if there is any bullet fragments lodged in your brain without an MRI, but the fact that you're moving is a positive sign," he continued mechanically.

"Luckily the bullet stayed only in the left hemisphere. The brain is an incredible machine; usually if one hemisphere remains healthy it can help compensate or the injured side will learn from the healthy side in order to find a way to reform connections and therefore regain function in time. I cannot say exactly what parts of your brain have been affected; clearly your temporal lobe has been impaired which is causing memory loss and speech impairment, based on the angle of the wound I would guess that the amygdala has been damaged as well. Even if I had all the equipment in the world, I wouldn't be able to predict how you will heal. Maybe the memories will be gone forever, maybe you'll never be able to speak again, maybe a bullet fragment will shift and cause new symptoms or maybe you will heal perfectly and everything will return to normal. Only time will tell," he finished simply.

Beth should have probably felt afraid. She should have been terrified of not being able to speak or remember anything.

She looked over at the other man who seemed to be glaring at the doctor, although she didn't fully understand why. Was it his bluntness or was it something else? Kyle had a face that wore every thought, as if his eyes were a declaration of his soul. This instantly made her trust him.

"For now, I can take out the stitches on your face, close up the wound on your head and keep everything clean to prevent infection. We will find a way to get that cast off soon."

He seemed to catch himself.

"That is…if you would like to come with us," he said with a small gesture towards Kyle in the front seat.

Despite her dislike of the doctor, she sized him up—taking in his shaking breaths, his shifty, scared eyes and his thin limbs. She assessed her own strength, muscles she sensed beneath her gray sweater and jeans.

_He is weak, soft and relies only on his intelligence. I could take him,_ she thought.

Next she looked at Kyle. He was much stronger, she could see how taught the fabric of his long sleeve uniform was over his arms and the premature lines in his face that told her that he had experienced more misery than his youth would suggest. But his face was easy to read and she felt certain she could trust him.

_Being in a group is safer than being alone_, she knew this to be true even if she didn't fully understand why.

And with that, she nodded her head and these strangers became her allies.

/

Beth was not going to make it far, Dr. Edwards had predicted as much and she noticed that he kept glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. Her head throbbed, her feet dragged and she knew she must have appeared ghostly pale—she had lost too much blood.

"We need to find a place to hold up for a few days," said the doctor.

Kyle's eyes flicked quickly, almost imperceptibility, to Beth before nodding in agreement.

The group had been shuffling along the highway for only a few hours; the sun was still burning bright, not yet dipping into the tree line. Beth and Dr. Edwards were almost completely useless. It made her want to cry out of frustration. She didn't have any memories of her likes or dislikes but she had already learned that she didn't like being helpless or feeling weak. Her limbs were still not fully cooperative, it felt like her body had too little energy to spare on anything but walking. So even though Beth had two weapons now—Kyle's large knife was gripped in her hand without the cast—she was forced to only observe and learn from her surroundings.

So far they had only seen one or two rotters at a time.

_What happens when there is a big group… like a herd?_ she thought with frown.

The answer came to her almost immediately in a gruff, voice that wasn't her own: _**Run.**_

Something about this rough, male voice in her head made her heart clench painfully, but couldn't recall whose voice it was.

Neither of her companions had spoken much throughout the day, it appeared to Beth that they were merely acquaintances. Dr. Edwards seemed to be surrounded in a haze of guilt and fear, even the rotters couldn't spark real life or a reaction into him. Kyle told a few anecdotes and some jokes occasionally but the comments weren't towards his companions. He seemed to be talking just to fill his own ears with something other than silence and their own footsteps. She was abundantly curious to know what had happened to them, how they had known her name, how they came to find her and where exactly they were headed. But since she still didn't have a voice to ask, she had to let her questions drop.

After only a short time, they came across a town that stretched out from the side of the highway.

"This is going to be our best bet, the sun will be going down soon and I want us to be locked up tight before it does," said Kyle. He had taken on the leadership role when it was clear that he was the most competent of the posse.

They walked off the asphalt towards the buildings. Kyle was still talking softly to himself about various useful buildings they passed: hardware store, grocery store, pharmacy, car repair shop. The town felt cramped after being on the open road all day, buildings were closing her in making her search for an escape route. She knew it would be harder to see rotters approaching too.

Finally, they entered a neighborhood. The yards were all in complete disarray, with weeds growing as tall as her. Paint was chipped off of the houses, some windows were smashed, and a few front doors stood wide open. On the sidewalk in front of one house, Beth noticed two little handprints pressed into the cement. Underneath the dirt and abuse that came from the end of the world, it is easy to see that the houses used to be loved and cared for. Now the emptiness reminds Beth of the rotters. She knew that in a past life all these things held beauty but in the hollowness that remains she couldn't see anything beautiful.

She signaled up ahead to a light green house that was two stories with an attic window too. It was on the corner with meant it had a clearer view of the surroundings. Kyle beamed at her and gave her a thumbs-up, although, she didn't quite understand what this gesture meant. The doctor just continued numbly following them.

Kyle climbed up the porch and made to open the front door. But Beth grabbed his arm to stop him. She went to the window and peered inside, seeing that the house looked deserted.

She banged loudly on the window and waited, listening for movement inside the house. Beth had no idea how she knew to do this before entering the house; the instinct was just engraved in her.

Nothing happened. After waiting about a minute, she nodded to Kyle and he led the group inside just as the red hue of the sky began to turn black signaling the sun's descent. They checked all the rooms and then Kyle began locking up the house, moving furniture in front of windows. Dr. Edwards directed Beth towards the couch where he proceeded to run his tests again, asking her questions and inspecting her bandages with a flashlight. She expected him to be detached in his exam, as he had been all day, but he actually started to warm up, which Beth took as a good sign.

"You're already showing an increased GCS and improved reflex responses. This really is astonishing!" he said excitedly as he scratched his beard.

Kyle was rooting around in the kitchen now, clearly trying to see if the previous occupants had left behind any food.

"Why don't you go pick a bedroom and get some rest? Make sure you bring a water bottle with you to stay hydrated. Kyle and I will work out a watch schedule, since you are still recuperating I want you to get as much rest as possible."

She nodded with a grateful smile and trudged up the stairs of this foreign house.

/

When a door clicked closed upstairs, the doctor let out an audible sigh of relief. Kyle had finished searching the kitchen after finding several cans of food, and now he was opening drawers and closets tossing anything useful into the center of the living room floor.

The doctor was still silent. He had been almost completely silent the past two days they had travelled together. Kyle hadn't known the doctor well in the hospital, he had intentionally stayed far away everyone else, but he was sharp enough to know that something was bothering the doc. Kyle, still in his dark blue officer uniform, opened a can of food for each of them and sat down in a fluffy, but dusty, brown suede chair facing the doctor.

"We need to talk about Beth," said the doctor in a hushed voice, glancing up at the floorboards as if unsure if she could hear through the ceiling.

"What about her?" replied Kyle.

"We need to lie. When she asks us questions about how we know her, what happened to her, everything, we must lie."

Kyle was dumbfounded.

"That poor girl was shot trying to save her friend, lost all her voice, family and memories. She had to wake up in this world of shit and the first thing you want to put in her mind is lies? Why?" Kyle hissed, his can of chili had been all but forgotten on a side table.

"If we tell her the truth she will be terrified of us. She will try to find to her family and she will get eaten alive out there, she can't even talk or properly care for herself. We have to help protect her," the doctor's words had started out fiercely but his voice cracked at the end.

Kyle stayed quiet, considering this. He didn't like it. It felt like taking advantage of this girl. He didn't know how old she was, but without her memories she was as fragile and naïve as a small child. This reminded him quickly of his own daughter, Ashley.

Ashley had been only six years old when the world ended, old enough to know that everything had gone wrong but not old enough to understand any of it. His wife, Lisa, had insisted they go to one of the refugee camps when the power grid had first gone down. Originally there had been military at the camps, protecting everyone from the monsters and keeping order among the frightened people. After a few days, the soldiers were mysteriously called away and the camp plummeted into chaos. Kyle had instructed Lisa to stay in their tent with Ashley and pack up their necessary items while he went to go find a gassed up car. When he returned however, both of them were dead. The fences had been overrun by a hoard of rotters and the only remnants of his family had been blood stained clothes and Ashley's favorite stuffed animal, a yellow elephant. He still saw red just thinking about it. He had been on his own for a long time after that, he was too sick with grief and rage to do anything but stab rotters in the head.

_If someone had found Ashley, what would I want them to do?_ He reasoned.

He was spared from answering this question when the doctor spoke again.

"I failed all of my patients in Grady. They were mine to care for but instead they ended up in bloody heaps on the cafeteria floor while I ran to save my own tail. She is my last patient. Please… I can't fail again…" these came out as a strangled plea and Kyle's resolve crumbled.

Kyle nodded but then thought of something else. "What if she gets her memory back?"

"Then she won't need our protection anymore. She was the toughest person to ever walk the halls of Grady, she got Noah out, killed Gorman and attacked Dawn—if she returns to herself and wants to leave us then she might be capable of pursuing her group on her own."

"And if she doesn't get her memories back, then where are we headed?" Kyle asked.

/

When the heat from the sun beamed onto her face the next morning she groaned, still too tired to get up.

Sleep had evaded Beth all of last night. Nightmare after nightmare had pounded into her head. Each time one finally slipped away, another one would come barreling in to replace it, like waves crashing on a beach. She wasn't really sure if they could be considered nightmares because they didn't exactly scare her, but they did prevent her from getting the rest the doctor had ordered.

The only nightmare she could remember now was running. Just running. It was dark and her muscles burned from racing through the forest for so long. But she couldn't see what she was running from. However, that wasn't the important part, Beth didn't care who or what she was running away from. The disturbing part was that she knew someone in the dream was missing. No one was guiding her. Beth was alone in those woods. She was supposed to be following someone, but they had vanished.

Beth felt hauntingly empty without this unknown person in the dream, like imagining the sky without the sun or stars.

She could hear the two men's soft voices downstairs, muffled by the floorboards so she knew that she should get up to help them with the supply runs in town. As she walked down the stairs she looked at the pictures hanging along the walls. The pictures seemed foreign to her, not just because she didn't recognize the faces in them, but because the smiling faces, lavish dresses and birthday cakes no longer fit in this world. She couldn't remember a time when people celebrated like that, couldn't understand what circumstances would lead people to pull a tree into their house and put wrapped boxes underneath it. The proof of the pre-apocalypse world was right in front of her. It looked peaceful, simple. But since she only knew this new world, the people in the old pictures just looked foolish.

The third step from the bottom squeaked loudly as she stepped on it and the voices in the kitchen abruptly halted.

She nodded with a small smile as she entered the room where Kyle and Dr. Edwards seemed to have been in a heated discussion.

"Morning Sleeping Beauty, you sure do look like you were awoken from a slumber of death," Kyle chuckled at his own joke but Beth didn't understand his reference. Her only response was a furrowed brow.

Beth grabbed a can of peaches to eat and sat at a small round table in the corner of the room as the doctor flitted over to her—asking again about her condition, how she slept and more.

"You should have gotten more rest, stayed in bed instead of coming down here," reprimanded the doctor.

"I am going out to look for supplies. I'll check the stores we passed yesterday on the way in, especially that car shop. Keep the packs loaded and ready in the house in case we run into trouble and have to leave. If we get separated, meet back on the highway just north of town. Be sure to listen for gunfire, I will only use it if there is a problem," Kyle said as he started to swing his empty pack over his shoulder.

Beth stood to protest this.

_No one should be going out there alone!_ she thought.

There was no way to express her concern since she still couldn't talk.

Dr. Stevens then pressed a pad of paper and a pen that he had gotten out of the top kitchen drawer into her hand.

_What am I supposed to do with this?_ she looked at the doctor, willing him to understand.

"I figured you could use it to write until you're able to speak again," the doctor obliged her unspoken question.

Her mind came up blank.

_Write? _

The doctor looked perplexed now too. "You can't remember how to write?"

Beth shook her head.

He quickly snatched the pen and paper from her hand, scribbling on it before holding it up for her to look at.

"Can you read?" he asked quickly, the words falling out of his mouth, concern plastered on his face.

Beth stared hard at the paper, but the little blue symbols on the page were meaningless to her. So again, she shook her head. After a stunned but contemplative silence, the doctor began shooing her back up the stairs with the peaches still in her hand.

"Back to bed. You need your rest so you can heal," he said, making it clear that she had no say in the matter. Dr. Edwards, still in his wrinkled white coat, stood like a bodyguard at the door waiting for her to climb under the purple comforter. He quietly shut the door behind him as he exited her small room.

She carefully slid off of her bed and opened the door just a crack.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" Kyle asked in a whisper so low that Beth could barely hear him.

There was a long pause before the doctor replied gravely, "I don't know… we will just have to wait and hope for the best."

/

Thirteen days passed with the same routine.

Beth's reoccurring dreams at night and bed rest during the day, the doctor watching the house and performing regular tests on her, and Kyle going into town to see what he could gather. There was quite a large pile forming on the living room floor of items he had deemed useful enough to drag back to their little green house with white shutters: numerous canned goods, some red plastic gas cans, several changes of clothes for each of them, a few small tool kits, some medicines, and more.

While Beth was confined to her room, she began trying to read the few books she had found scattered around the house. She saw patterns in the texts, structure, and learned that there were 24 different little symbols combined in countless different ways along the pages but none of this jogged her memory. The doctor also came in and talked to her a lot—saying that hearing other voices may help her brain reform the connections that would allow her to talk again. Her voice was still absent but it had become less frustrating, as if she knew words were going to spill out of her mouth any second so she didn't need to force it.

On the thirteenth night in the house, her dreams changed.

She was no longer running through the woods alone. The person she was waiting for finally showed up. Even though she was still sprinting through the forest, she felt relaxed now that he was there.

It was clearly a man that she was following, though he never turned to face her. He was tall but muscular, she could see his arms bulging under the weight of the crossbow he carried. His brown hair was matted and greasy and it was just long enough to graze the top of his collar. At the speed they were running Beth could feel burning in her lungs and cramps in her sides, but he moved with agility that suggested he had effortlessly traveled the woods numerous times before. Racing through the forest in his black leather, he resembled a panther—watchful, menacing, swift, and powerful. However, she wasn't threatened, instead she felt relief because she knew he was there to protect her.

Beth watched the faded gold angel wings stitched into his leather vest as they ran. She followed those wings, knowing they meant safety, and everything except him faded away as she finally drifted into restful sleep for the first time in her new memory.

The following morning she came downstairs for breakfast as usual, she grabbed a can of sliced pineapple off the counter and slid into a seat next to Kyle at the table. He was leaning the chair back on two legs with an easy smile on his face as he told the doctor a story about his daughter.

"—insisted on wearing that damn pink tutu everywhere, saying she wanted to be a princess ballerina. She even wore it to bed sometimes if she used those puppy-dog eyes on me. I remember, one day, another girl in her class made fun of her for wearing it so much and my little Ash just looked her right in the eye and said 'This makes me special, you don't have one so you're ordinary.' I don't even know where the hell a six year old learned that word!" He finished with a loud guffaw.

Beth laughed out loud. "Atta girl!" she shouted happily.

Kyle's balanced chair almost tipped over. The doctor's jaw fell as he stared wide-eyed at her.

"Damn it's good to hear that voice, like seeing a kid take their first steps," Kyle said as he clapped Beth on the shoulder.

The doctor immediately snapped into interrogation mode, asking her questions about how she felt, making her say specific sentences and shinning his flashlight into her eyes. After he was satisfied with his exam, he relaxed back into his chair. The relief on his face made it clear that he had not been confident that she would ever recover.

Her throat was hoarse from disuse. Her thoughts were racing now but her mouth was still sluggish. She didn't care that her voice unsteady, she was excited that she was making progress and maybe now they would let her out of the house that she'd been locked in for two weeks.

"This is an excellent sign. It's astonishing that your speech came back. Don't worry if it comes and goes in waves. Your brain is still healing, forming synaptic connections," he beamed.

It was a happy moment in the kitchen and Beth now felt like she could be a true part of the team.

"So… what's… next?" asked Beth, the words seemed to go from her brain to her mouth slower than molasses moving in the winter.

The two men glanced quickly at each other. A shadow seemed to pass over Kyle's face and there was a miniscule shake of his head. The doctor glared and proceeded to talk to Beth as if nothing had happened.

"I think we should rest here at least one more day, get all the supplies properly stored for transport and we still need to find a working car, so far all the batteries have been dead," the doctor said in an authoritative voice.

Beth waited. This hadn't answered her question of where they were actually going.

"We are going to head up to Richmond, Virginia. I had a…friend," he stumbled over this word, "who lived in a secure neighborhood there, with walls that held out the rotters."

_He's lying_, she realized.

She didn't know how she knew, but she did. This was a lie. It wasn't a friend they were meeting. Who were they taking her to? Why would they lie to her about it? Beth decided that it was best not to confront them about it right now. She had plenty of time to find out what the truth was and time to ditch them if she discovered they were trying to harm her.

After much back and forth, they decided that they would get moving the next day at dawn. Kyle had one more shop he wanted to check today; a small pharmacy with boarded up windows and locks on the door that was tucked away in a side street in the center of town. Kyle reckoned that not many people had wandered so deep into this town after the world fell, and with the added obstacles closing up the store he felt there was a good chance that there would still be useful stuff inside.

"I want to come," said Beth slowly but eagerly. She wanted to help pull her weight.

"Nah. I think you better rest, kiddo. Who knows how long we will be on the road tomorrow, better save up your strength while you can," replied Kyle with a small shrug.

Beth's temper flared at his use of the word "kiddo." She couldn't remember how old she was but she certainly didn't want to be treated like some incompetent fool. The doctor put a calming hand on her shoulder, seeing that she was getting worked up.

"You will have an ample amount of time to kill rotters once we're on the road. It's a long trip to Virginia. The more you rest now, the more time you'll be able to take on later," Dr. Edwards ordered with a small nod.

So Kyle left the house alone to get provisions, while Beth was on house arrest with her doctor. She snorted at the irony that it was not the cop that kept her under lock and key. The two of them neatly loaded everything they had gathered in the house over the last week into the large packs Kyle had left behind. He had found her a large brown hiking backpack in one of the houses on the block. After everything was packed and ready for tomorrow, Beth slunk back up to her room to get the rest that the doctor ordered.

She was doubtful that she would fall asleep since it was still daylight, but soon after plopping down on the bed, she drifted off in the warmth of her soft purple sheets.

But she awoke to a blood-curdling scream from downstairs and the unmistakable growls that she knew meant only one thing.

/

**A/N: **Uh-Oh! Another cliffhanger. Please don't hate me! I **promise** not all of the chapters will end on a cliffhanger. Hopefully you can forgive me because of how absurdly long this chapter was! (:

All reviews are appreciated, thanks for reading. I will update frequently—but more reviews/follows/favorites would definitely motivate me! **To my followers**: do you have a preference on what day of the week you want updates?

_My nerdy notes about this chapter-_

I did clinical research in the ER on traumatic brain injuries so everything is possible (unlikely, sure, but still possible). I wanted the science to be clear and correct but not over the top so let me know if it was too technical!

Anyone who knows about brain functions, there is a hint about Beth's **big secret **in here… let me know if you think you've figured it out!

FOR MY SUPER NERDS: I made some guesses based on the angle of the gunshot. I took liberties with Broca's area (She would have likely had Wernicke's aphasia based on bullet trajectory but I chose to give her Broca's aphasia simply because I thought Wernicke's aphasia would have be too difficult to convey through writing). Additionally, I know her healing time would have been longer but I didn't want to slow the story down too much (but look at Gabby Giffords to see some miraculously quick healing! Traveling across the country 4 only months after being shot in the head.)

TO THE DOUBTERS: do your research! Dr. Keith Black, chairman of neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in LA, says: "A person's chances of surviving such a trauma to the brain depend on the areas of the brain that are struck, the velocity of the bullet and whether the bullet exits the brain. If a bullet passes through both the right and left hemispheres of the brain, instead of being confined to one side, then the damage is likely to be much worse. The brain is somewhat redundant — it can sometimes tolerate losing one half. Like a twin-engine plane that has lost one engine, a person whose brain was pierced by a bullet on only one side has a better chance than someone who has suffered injury to both sides." For this reason, I live in DELUSION-CITY with all the other Bethylers. (:

_-andddd nerdiness over. _

**Thanks for reading! Please review/favorite/follow, it makes my heart happy!**


	3. The Fatherless and The Widow

**A/N: **Thanks for all the follows/favorites. Special thanks to: DarylDixon'sLover (NOPE, she is not the cure) and Emberka-2012 and the guests for the reviews (the most recent guest review SERIOUSLY made my day. Whoever you are, I adore you!). Sorry if the last chapter was too long for some of you. I don't have a set length for chapters, I just write until that "section" feels complete in my head.

Companion song: "Leave my body"- Florence and the Machine

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

Reviews, Follows and Favorites are all greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!

/

**Chapter 3: The Fatherless and The Widow**

Her eyes flew open and she recognized the danger immediately. She had left her door open when she fell asleep and a rotter had already gotten into her room. The stench of decaying flesh filled the air and she fought back a gag as the reanimated corpse stumbled towards her bed. There was a spark in its eyes; not a spark of life but it was clear that the rotter sensed his prey was within his grasp.

She was still lying trapped under the purple sheets of the queen bed, defenseless, as her small knife lay on the small side table next to the bed. Beth couldn't reach for it because moving towards the knife meant moving closer towards the biting monster.

It lunged, teeth chomping, towards her face.

Her brain was clear. There was no terror or uncertainly clouding her judgment.

Beth knew it was kill or be killed, and she knew what to do.

In the span of a second she rolled onto her left side, grabbing the pillow to shield her head. The rotter bit down directly on the back of the pillow, where her face had been only seconds ago. Beth rolled back to the right, kicking the thick blanket over the greedy hands as best she could as she simultaneously rolled the pillow on top of his hungry face. She held the pillow down over his face tight enough that it would have suffocated a normal, living human. She reached over the writhing body and grabbed her knife off of the table. Without hesitation Beth shoved the knife through the pillow and with a sickening crunch the knife plunged into its skull. The putrid body went still below her. She swiftly pulled her knife back out with a strange suction noise and black sludge oozed out onto the purple pillowcase.

_The doctor is screaming. We have to get out of here and find Kyle_, were her only thoughts as she flew out of the room.

Beth threw her pack over her shoulder, and grabbed the large hunting knife by the door. She took out another rotter on the staircase by repeatedly slamming its head against the wooden banister. As she got downstairs, she knew it was too late.

The screams had already subsided.

She noticed the machete stuck into a skull of a dead rotter in the hallway.

Six rotters surrounded the doctor's body, tearing apart his flesh on the kitchen floor. He was recognizable only by the white coat that was shredded and bloodied around a pile of bones and gore.

_What a horrible way to die_, she faltered, overcome with sadness, for only a millisecond as she skipped the squeaky third step. The rotters were too distracted, thrown into a frenzy by their meal, to see or hear her passing by the kitchen. She shook off these glum thoughts for Dr. Edwards—she would mourn later—as she silently darted towards the back window. The rotters must have come in the front door so she didn't want to head towards the front of the house, and they had boarded up all the windows except the back one. As she crossed the living room, she snatched up the doctor's black bag that she had packed for him earlier and his Glock that sat loaded on the coffee table.

He didn't need it anymore.

She checked the back yard and it was empty of rotters so she scurried out of the window. Beth began quietly jogging away from the house with the machete in her hand, her smaller hunting knife sheathed now on her hip and she shoved the gun into the back waistband of her jeans. She wasn't sure where the pharmacy was so she decided it would be best to meet back on the highway as the officer had suggested when they'd first arrived in town. She stopped in the intersection next to their house and quickly arranged some rocks into the shape of an arrow, pointing the direction she was going. Kyle would come back to the house, find the rotters and hopefully realize she put the rocks there to lead him to her. She said a silent prayer for the doctor, and a brief thank you to her good luck—what would have happened if she had taken her boots off before falling asleep or if she hadn't packed up all their bags earlier that day?

The light was already fading when she reached the northern edge of town, close to the highway. She set the packs down and leaned against the tree but was unsure of how long she should wait out here in the open for Kyle.

About an hour later, she heard rustling in the leaves. She quickly pushed off the tree and strained her ears, trying to determine if it was a live or undead human.

"Doc? Beth?" said a voice in a loud whisper.

Beth grabbed the packs and walked towards the noise. Kyle saw her and relief flashed over his face, his shoulders relaxed slightly. But his eyes continued to dart around behind her, looking for the doctor. When he saw that she had two packs, his face fell a little.

"He didn't make it, did he?"

Beth just shook her head. She could probably talk but she still wasn't used to it. A sense of guilt overcame her. If she hadn't needed to rest for so long in that house, this wouldn't have happened. She also couldn't help but make the connection between her triumph, getting her speech back this morning, and the doctor's death this afternoon. It seemed like just when something good happened, everything went bad—one step forward and two steps back.

"Well, we can either hold up around here for the night or we can try to walk through the night… What do you want to do?" asked Kyle. It was clear that he was trying to distract himself from the doctor's death, trying to keep moving so he wouldn't have to dwell on it.

They decided to stay in a small liquor store. It had been cleared completely of everything useful long ago, particularly since it was so close to the highway. But the large coolers that lined the wall meant an added level of protection from the undead while they slept. When Beth was starting to drift off, she heard Kyle's quiet sobs and sniffles and she knew he was crying over their loss today.

/

It was yet another person that he didn't save.

First his wife and daughter, then all those people who were raped or left to die on the road, and now Dr. Edwards.

He was sick of being unable to defend people. He never should have gone on that run today, they had a ton of supplies and they should have just left that morning like Beth wanted. That was all he had left, this defenseless, adolescent girl who couldn't remember her own last name. But he wouldn't let her die. Beth was his only chance at redemption. If he could get her safely to her family, maybe he could come back from all the terrible things he had done.

The sky was beginning to lighten, a yellow haze settling on the ground outside as sunrise began. He decided it was time to move. They were now more than two weeks behind Noah's group and they would certainly be moving a lot slower than the large group since there were only two of them and they didn't have a car. Kyle silently hoped, not for the first time, that the doctor's guess had been correct, that the group was returning Noah to his family in Virginia and that the walls surrounding that town still held.

He shook the girl's shoulder, thinking about how long of a trip they had in front of them, she sat bolt upright and her hand reached immediately for the knife sheathed on her hip.

_Maybe she isn't completely defenseless_, he thought hopefully.

They quickly ate while digging through the doctor's pack, ditching the few items of clothing that they had found but would not fit either of the surviving members. However, he heard ripping noises and looked down to see Beth was ripping a red t-shirt into long, thin strips.

He arched an eyebrow at her, "What are you going to do with those?"

"I dunno, thought they might be useful as markers or to tie a wound when we run outta gauze," she said with a shrug.

_Definitely not useless_, he thought of his young companion with more certainty.

Kyle gave her a holster for the machete that strapped around her thigh. While it was becoming clear that she was intelligent, even without her memories, she was still clearly a teenager and he was determined to protect this fragile girl who was his last hope for some type of karmic retribution.

They set out before the sun had finished rising.

After several hours, Kyle had to break the silence. He hated silences, their awkwardness made him fidgety.

"I guess since you don't remember anything you don't miss anything from before, huh?"

"Um… no." she said with a slightly confused look.

He let out a small, slightly envious laugh. "Maybe that's a good thing. It means you can't be sad for things that have completely disappeared. I just ache sometimes; missing things can take a physical toll. Of course I miss my family, but even the simple things… like milkshakes. Damn, they were so good, all creamy and cold. And with fries! I would dip the fries in it to get the perfect combination of salty and sweet. Or pizza! When you bite into it and it is so hot that it burns the roof of your mouth. Mmmmmm."

Beth let out a small smile and a laugh at his enthusiasm, but he knew she couldn't really imagine what a milkshake was like. It was sad that this young girl would never know such luxuries.

However, in many ways, Kyle thought it might truly be a blessing. Sure, she couldn't remember the happy times, but she also did not have to be haunted by the faces of those she lost.

Kyle continued to ramble on about nothing of significance, such as old TV shows and favorite restaurants, until the sun began to set. Today had been slow moving. Kyle knew Northern Georgia well, his wife's parents lived here so he used to take Ashley to visit her grandparents at least once a week, and they were not making great time. Kyle didn't want to strain the girl, especially because without Dr. Edwards here to give her a check up he couldn't be sure if she was truly doing okay. Also, they were weighed down with their full packs plus the doctor's. He didn't want to ditch it yet because food was hard to find, but the added weight of all the cans was a problem.

_We have to keep it, I can't hunt and I don't know anything about edible plants. Besides, who knows what we will find on the way to Virginia, maybe everywhere we go will have been cleared out. We'll just have to go slowly for now, but hopefully we will get there without starving…_he worried internally.

They found a dirt road that led to a farm where they rested for the night. The house had already been completely emptied and he knew he had been right in keeping their supplies. There weren't even any blankets on the beds left, but it was late spring so it was plenty warm. He found a bible that had been tossed on the floor in the previous looter's haste to search for anything useful. Kyle smiled softly at this. It had a light blue cover just like his wife, Lisa's, old bible. He was not religious, but his wife had been and she dragged him to church every Sunday. Oh, what he wouldn't give to go back one more time, he would gladly spend 50 years worth of Sundays on those hard wooden pews if it meant being next to her again. He picked up the bible and turned it over, glancing down at the page that had been face down on the floor. A verse caught his eye.

Isaiah 1:17 "Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow."

He grinned. He would do exactly this, do the right thing for Beth, and defend her because her own father was no longer here to do it. Although, he didn't need to plead the case for the widow…he was the widow.

/

"I need you to teach me how to fight," Beth said on the road the one afternoon.

She had been watching Kyle intently for the past few days as he killed the decaying monsters they passed on the road. Beth took mental notes: always get them through the head, never let them get their hands on you, be careful of their mashing teeth, move as quietly as possible… the list went on and on.

However, all of these rules she was learning were familiar. Like she already knew the rules and this was just review.

She guessed that this must be true since she killed the two rotters in the house the day that Dr. Edwards died and she had killed a few on the road since then. Beth didn't even know how she knew what to do, her body had moved on pure instinct, going through the motions without conscious input from her mind.

"You're damn right I do! I will teach you how to kill rotters and some self-defense too, never know who you're going to meet out here. Don't know much about survival skills—hunting, fishing, making fires, or whatever—so I can't really help with that. But you're going to need to bulk up if you plan on packing a real punch! Maybe you can bench press these overstuffed packs."

He talked with such lightness, always joking, even about serious issues. At times, Beth found it endearing but other times it was annoying. She needed to learn how to fight in order to survive in this world, it was kill or be killed, and there was nothing funny about it.

They spent the day walking, checking cars to see if they worked, and he taught Beth about killing rotters. When they found an REI just off the highway in late afternoon, they decided to check it out and see if it was possible to stay there for the night. Kyle said REI would have a lot of outdoor gear and sturdy shoes. They still used Beth's method of knocking loudly on the front door to lure rotters to the front in order to see how many there were inside. She didn't know how she had known from day-one in her new life that this technique would work to draw them out, it must be the same way she had known how to kill them when that corpse attacked her in the bed. Only five came to the storefront windows and the pair set down their bags next to the door.

"You ready?" Kyle asked with a smile as he gripped the door handle.

Beth nodded, her knuckles turning white from gripping her knife.

"Just remember what I taught you," he said as he flung the doors open.

The dead came hurling out towards them. Beth focused calmly on the one that came at her, just seconds before it reached her she jumped out of its path. It continued straight for another two steps, unable to realize she had moved so quickly, as she rotated and stabbed the knife right through the base of its skull, successfully severing the brainstem as it crumbled to the ground in a heap. The next one came up on her quickly, its jaw snapping within inches of her. Beth shoved her wrist into its open mouth; the hard cast on her wrist kept her safe as she reached up and stabbed it in the temple. She quickly turned to see that Kyle had taken one down and the two others were making their way towards him. With footsteps too light to be heard by the rotters, she dispatched the one closest to her with a swift jab through the temple without even breaking a stride. She managed to grab the last one by the shoulder, pulling so hard that it stopped shuffling forward and before it even could reach for its new target, she had plunged the knife through the right eye socket.

Beth felt the adrenaline that had pumped through her veins, the mental clarity that it brought, but she didn't feel any guilt or fear despite the fact that she had just killed four people. If they could really be considered people…

Kyle was openly gaping at her.

"Girl, you don't need to be taught anything! Looks like you've got it down already. Don't think I've ever seen such a natural. You must have been attending a school for ninjas before the turn." He still looked at her with awe as she went to pick up her bag and push into the store.

The next two days they decided to stay around the area to search the other stores in the shopping center. They had found a quality tent that didn't weigh much, some excellent sleeping bags, two hammocks, new boots, various ropes and carabineers in REI.

She had changed out of the flimsy old cowboy boots she had been wearing but she kept the black and white shoelaces that were tied around her ankles. For some reason, they felt important so she left them on before pulling on the new thick socks and black boots.

The rest of the day searching was uneventful. Their packs were already full so they didn't really need supplies, other than food and water. But Kyle did change the bandage on her head for the first time since the doctor died and he taught her some self-defense moves on the roof of the REI store—it had a good vantage point so they could see if anything was headed their way.

He was a good teacher. It was the most serious she had ever seen him and Kyle explained that he had actually been a self-defense instructor for some time before the end of the world. When they were taking a break from sparring, Kyle fell into a story, as usual.

"My little sister was attacked by three men on the street outside of her apartment when she was only 18. It was her first place on her own. I was so proud of her, in college and working full-time to pay her own rent. And then she got attacked. They ended up just taking her purse and leaving her, but she ended up with two broken ribs, needed 22 stitches and had lots of bruises. I didn't want anyone to be defenseless like she had been, so I learned and started teaching at a local studio. I had just signed the lease papers on my own self defense studio before the dead started walking around," he finished with a sad sigh.

Kyle glanced at her with a huge grin, "Guess I did finally get to teach someone though!"

Beth actually smiled at this. It felt good to help him fulfill his dream.

"Then I guess I should call you Instructor McGinley now," she said. The words were still sluggish falling out of her mouth but they did cause Kyle to let out a happy whoop.

/

The next morning was cool but the humidity in the air indicated that summer was approaching fast. They had spent the last two days searching everywhere they could for water because they only had three more full bottles, but came up empty.

"We need to find a way to capture some water. Luckily we're in the rainy season so chances are pretty good that it will pour on us sooner or later. When it does, we've got to be ready. But that means we will have to stay set up somewhere…" His voice was clearly conflicted. Beth could tell that he wanted to keep moving towards Virginia as fast as possible, but they wouldn't get far without water.

"We've cleared this town out of anything useful. Let's set up in the next place we come across, search it while we wait for rain," Beth said softly.

Kyle nodded, yet again impressed by the girl's street smarts and her bravery. She hadn't seem frightened of the rotters they'd killed in the last few days and she didn't seem nervous of the prospect of traveling further north.

_I guess if the only thing you know is this rotter-infested planet, it all seems mundane…_ he reasoned as he pondered her lax attitude in the face of the unknown.

He knew that she was skilled with a gun before the accident. He had watched from his position on guard duty on the roof of Grady Memorial as she tried to escape with Noah. She had shot every single rotter square in the head, didn't waste a single bullet. Gorman had definitely been wrong when they picked her up. He said she was weak, but he had been wrong. She was strong then and after being shot in the head, she somehow seemed even stronger.

_I've got to tell her about what happened in the hospital… and about her family. She deserves to know_, he thought.

But he didn't know how to bring the subject up. So they just grabbed their bags and continued walking north.

Later that day, Beth paused at a huge blue sign and Kyle stopped next to her. There was a large peach on it but Beth couldn't read the words.

"What does it say?" she asked softly.

"Goodbye, keep Georgia on your mind," he said with a smile as he continued into South Carolina.

/

**A/N: **Yay, no cliffhanger this time :P Hope y'all liked it!

Side note: Officer McGinley was a real character from Grady but there was no first name listed for him, so I just gave him the first name of the actor that played him. I had so much fun creating his back-story, so let me know what do you think of Kyle so far?

**In the next chapter, Beth learns the truth about what happened at the hospital.**

**Thanks for reading and please review (good or bad!)/favorite/follow, it feeds my soul!**


	4. Confessions

**A/N: **I am so excited that people seem to like this story (can't believe I'm only 3 chapters in and already have 46 followers! Yayyyy!) I had a hard time with this chapter… so **please** let me know what you think.

Companion song: "Dig" by Incubus

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

/

**Chapter 4: Confessions**

Beth stopped. Her stomach was fluttering at the idea of leaving Georgia. Something was missing. Someone should be there with her, crossing the state line with her. A sense of emptiness engulfed her. It was the same horrible feeling she got in her nightmares when that angel wasn't there to lead her through the forest.

She desperately wished she could remember this person she was missing; this person who made her heart ache.

Kyle had paused, looking at her like she was a wounded kitten.

"What does it feel like to miss someone?" she asked.

He sighed deeply and scratched the back of his neck.

"It hurts every bone, every inch of your body. It feels like all your cells are trying to escape from you, they're searching for the other person. Each second they are not there tears away a layer of you, like an onion, and you think that soon there won't be any more layers to peel away… but that's not true… somehow it's endless."

His face was distraught and distant; Beth knew that he was thinking of his family. She nodded in understanding at his explanation, and felt a jolt of jealousy for her companion. He had the memories of the good times with his wife to relive but Beth just felt a sense of emptiness. There was nothing she could do about this, to fill this void, so she shook her head to clear it before joining him in South Carolina.

After some time passed, in silence for once, they came across a town and decided to stop for the night, maybe longer if they didn't find any water. They cleared a CVS and found three bottles of water that had rolled under a shelf, a few cans of tuna and some stale crackers in the food section. There were some dark clouds rolling in from the west so they were hopeful that it would rain soon, maybe even tonight. They set up tarps on the roof to capture any rainwater before going back inside to search the store.

Beth was willing to bet that people had come in here and headed straight for the pharmacy, which was emptied, and thus had missed a lot of the other useful items that were left scattered through the building. There was an entire section of makeup and Beth stared at everything in disbelief. She couldn't even remember what all these items did.

Kyle saw her gaping at the shelves and laughed, "That's the exact same face I always had when my wife asked me to pick something up for her!"

A few minutes later, Kyle had grabbed up a blue box from the floor of another aisle, the only box of this kind because the shelves in this aisle had been mostly emptied. He sheepishly handed Beth the box with an awkward shrug.

"Might need these," he mumbled as he pushed the box into her hands.

She couldn't read the box, of course.

"What is this?" she asked, wishing she could read or remember what these items were that made her normally outgoing comrade seem so timid.

"Uh… er… well," he stammered.

"Shit. I was never supposed to have this conversation, Lisa was supposed to handle this," he muttered to himself almost.

He finally spit out, "They are tampons. Guess you don't really remember them, maybe you will when the time comes. I certainly hope so. I sure as hell can't be doing any type of demonstration! Use them for your 'lady's vacation' or whatever. Don't know how old you are but I'm sure your parents would have given you 'the talk' already about this and boys and pregnancies. I guess I could answer questions if you have them now that you can't remember that talk. Don't really know how that conversation goes, didn't expect to have it with Ashley for another 10 years…"

Beth actually laughed at his ramblings, he soon joined in and their laughter echoed through the small store.

"I will just let you know if I have any questions, although it's not really a high priority right now. Water, food and not dying are basically the only things on my to-do list," she said and Kyle looked visibly relieved at being let off the hook from having 'the talk.'

The sun had already set and storm clouds covered the stars and moon, it had become too dark to see her hand in front of her face. So they shared a can of tuna and a can of green beans in the dark before settling into their new sleeping bags.

Beth's dreams that night were distorted.

She watched Kyle age quickly before her eyes as they walked and talked on the road. He wore suspenders; his beard grew out and went white; his hair grew longer and grayer until it rested in a small ponytail at the nape of his neck; he lost his leg and began walking on crutches; his facial features morphed until it didn't even look like Kyle anymore. Kyle McGinley was the only person in the entire world that she knew, but something about the old man was comforting to her.

By the time the sun came up, barely visible through the cloud layer, they had already resumed their search of the store. Kyle had found a few tubes of chapstick that had rolled under an overturned shelf, and passed a couple to Beth. She stared at him with a questioning look in her eyes.

"Trust me, that'll be as good as gold when it's winter, you're dehydrated and your lips are more cracked more often than a plumber's butt," he laughed at his own joke, another one that Beth didn't understand, and he pushed the little tubes into her hand.

There were a lot of useless items: boxes of hair coloring, endless magazines, and a set of metal crutches. She paused at the crutches, remembering the old man in her dream the night before. Maybe crutches were useful, or would be one day when Kyle grew old, but she knew it was impractical to carry them on the road. She put numerous paper cards in a pile to use as kindling later that night. Beth found a few small boxes of crayons, she threw them in the bottom of her bag but she didn't know what she would use them for yet.

Kyle shouted from across the store.

Suddenly, Beth couldn't find her voice to respond.

Too many things were going on in her mind, it seemed to short circuit and she lost her ability to talk again.

But she was still able to move.

So she moved quickly.

She hiked the pack up on her shoulders—unsure if they would need to leave immediately—and ran through the aisles trying to pinpoint where Kyle was. When she found him he was crouched over on the floor. She glanced around but there was no sign of a struggle, no rotters, nothing. Then he turned around and there was a look of glee on his face.

He held up a pack of red playing cards.

"Hell yeah! Finally found something good to pass the time, can't believe I didn't find any in the houses over the past two weeks!" His voice faltered when he saw her face and her raised knife. "What're you doing there, killer?"

"Kyle, I thought you were hurt! Don't shout like that you idiot," her words were accusing but her face was relieved and her tone told him that she was not really calling him an idiot.

"Sorry, kiddo! I didn't mean to worry you. Why don't you sit down so I can teach you how to play some card games! Can't really go anywhere today anyway since we're waiting on the storm, might as well finally do something fun," he conceded as he glanced out the windows that lined the top foot of the store.

It had started raining a while ago. Even though she knew it was only mid-morning, the sky was dark. The wind was blowing so hard that she thought the tarp might have blown off the roof.

"Let's check the tarp first, then we can play… on one condition," she warned.

"What?" Kyle looked suspicious; he didn't know what the condition would be.

"Don't call me kiddo."

He snickered, "Deal."

They checked their tarp on the roof; it was still secure and slowly filling with water. They filled the empty bottles with the water that had already accumulated. Kyle ran back to the stairwell to get out of the rain before he got drenched.

Instead of joining him, Beth stood in the rain. She took off her bloodstained top shirt, leaving her dark blue tank top on, and left it hanging to soak in the rain. She pulled out her ponytail, brushed out her long hair with her fingers and let the water draw the dirt out of her blonde tresses. After just a few minutes in the storm she felt cleaner and more refreshed than she could ever remember. Although, her memory only spanned back a couple weeks so this wasn't saying much.

While the sky looked tormented and the trees shook violently with the wind, the rest of the world seemed peaceful. She couldn't see any rotters, couldn't hear growling and it was too hard to even attempt to see or hear anything through the downpour. It probably should have scared her, being so blind to any approaching dangers. However, it was freeing… there was no point in worrying since she had no power to control anything. It was then that she learned something else about herself: she loved the rain.

Finally, she went back inside, dripping on the floor as she went.

What she couldn't see through the rain was the stranger watching her. In the bank across the street, shielded by the shadows, a man stood observing her private, peaceful moment in the rain.

/

Kyle was shuffling the cards in the back of the store, sitting with two open cans of food and their fresh water bottles, when she came down the stairs soaking wet.

He had never seen her with her hair down or with such a large smile on her face, it caused deep laugh lines in her cheeks and he immediately grinned too. This true smile of hers was rare but infectious. He couldn't bring it about with his jokes, which only ever earned him small smirks or light laughs.

Searching through his pack, he found the small, brown blanket he had grabbed from a house last week. He thought it could double for warmth and possibly adequate camouflage in a pinch. He tossed it to her.

"Dry off, kid. Didn't your mom ever tell you that's how you catch a cold?"

The smile vanished from her face instantaneously.

And he knew he had messed up. Of course her mother probably had told her this, but Beth couldn't even remember what color her mother's hair was, much less the lectures she had given.

"Sorry Beth, I didn't think. It's just an expression. It popped right out of my mouth, you know this thing doesn't have a filter," he sputtered, indicating his big mouth.

The drenched blonde put on one of those small, forgiving grins as she shrugged, taking the blanket and patting her hair off. He watched as she sat down cross-legged in front of him and motioned towards the cards.

"What are we playin'?" she asked flatly.

After a second of inspecting her face to make sure she was okay, he dealt them each 5 cards and started explaining how to play poker. They ended up sitting there for hours as the storm raged on outside. Beth was pretty damn good, mostly because he was terrible at lying so it was easy for her to call his bluffs. This used to be one of Lisa's favorite things, because she always knew if he wasn't being truthful like when he would "forget" to mow the lawn or would go out to happy hour with his buddies but tell her he was working late.

He was building up the nerve to tell Beth the truth about the hospital and about her family… at least he was going to tell her everything that he knew.

_How do I start a conversation like that?_ he wondered. _'Oh by the way, everything we've told you since you woke up has been a lie.' _

The conversation did not go well in his head.

But he knew that she deserved the truth, even if sucked.

"Beth, I have to talk to you about something…"

She looked at him expectantly. In that moment he knew that she had been waiting for this conversation.

_She already knew the doctor lied… plus she could probably tell that I've been steeling myself for this talk for hours. _

This knowledge gave him the strength to push into the conversation.

"We lied, the doc and I. We don't have a friend who lives in Virginia…" he paused here and it felt like an eternity to get out the second half of the sentence. "… **you** are the one with a friend in Virginia."

There was a tiny gasp of air as she processed this news.

"Who is it? How do you know them?"

"His name is Noah and it's a long story. It's not a good story though… are you sure you want to hear it?" he asked tentatively, unsure how much new information she would be able to handle.

She nodded, her face was hard and her eyes were determinately focused on him as if she was afraid to blink and miss something.

"Well, first you should know about Grady Memorial Hospital, it was a really messed up place. It started out good, they saved people from the rotters, took them in and gave them medical treatment and in return the patients stayed and helped out. But as the world went from bad to worse, the hospital changed too. The people got ruthless; they would do anything to survive even if it meant killing people or leaving them behind... The leader was this woman named Dawn Lerner."

The cards they had been playing with were all but forgotten, lying scattered on the floor between them.

"I suppose it's hard to say if she was really bad or good, I think that line has gotten a little blurred now… maybe she was a good person who did bad things. I don't know." Kyle's honey brown eyes turned almost black when he continued, "We stopped taking strong people in, she was afraid they would take over or we would use resources on them and then they would just take off without '_repaying_' the hospital. So we only took in people who were deemed '_weak_'—people would be too afraid or unable to leave the hospital, people that the officers could push around…and take advantage of…"

"It was terrible Beth… and I wanted to leave but I… I didn't. I was on my own for so long after I lost my family and I just didn't want to be alone again. So I stayed. Then we found you and the hospital changed again," he finally met her eyes.

He felt so ashamed to tell another living soul about the hospital, especially someone so innocent with no memories of the evil in the world. While he never actually partook in the violence against the wards, he never stopped it either. And somehow that wasn't any better. Kyle was worried he had let Beth down but when he looked at her, he didn't see any judgment or disappointment. She was just listening; she just wanted to hear what he had to say. It was unexpected but it was the push he needed to keep talking.

"We picked you up off the side of the road, a small girl, we thought you were weak. But you weren't alone… we had to lie and tell you that you weren't with anyone because Dawn was afraid that you would leave to find the guy you were with. I don't know who he was, didn't get a good look at him, but we saw him from the road cutting down rotters easier than if he was slicing through butter, we could tell that he was strong, way too strong. We couldn't take him—probably couldn't have even gotten him into the car with us. So we… we knocked you out and took you but we left him. He chased after the car until we finally lost him."

Beth's heart clenched involuntarily at Kyle's words. With her stomach in a knot she wondered who this mysterious, strong man was that she had been traveling with… the man that had tried to run on foot after a car to reach her, to save her. She wondered how long he ran and what he knew of her fate now. Did he think she was still out there? Did he believe her dead or was he still looking for her? She became suddenly sad, an unexpected longing rose up within her and she felt a tug, as if her body was trying to pull her towards this man that had been left on the side of the road.

Kyle, oblivious to Beth's inner turmoil, continued with his confession, "When you woke up at the hospital, Dawn tried to keep you docile but she couldn't. You helped Noah escape; I think you would have taken him all the way to Virginia on your own. Never seen such a good shot while someone was running, you took out at least half a dozen rotters without wasting a bullet!" he looked over at her with a smile. He decided not to mention Gorman, he didn't want to bring up the fact that he had assaulted her or that she had been instrumental in killing him. He didn't know the full story but it had been obvious that it was Beth who locked Gorman in the room with Joan and Kyle had known that dirty, pervert well enough to guess the reason why Beth had done it.

"But the other officers grabbed you before you got out and locked you back in the hospital. Eventually your group came for you, I don't know how many were in your group, when they showed up there was 3 big guys, another woman, and Noah. That's when things went wrong. I think you were trying to save everyone from Dawn and the assaults and the imprisonment… Dawn got greedy and wouldn't let Noah leave, so you stabbed her. She reacted and… she… she shot you." he ended abruptly, unsure what words could explain the horror of seeing someone shot at point-blank range just for trying to save her friend.

"But Doc was too scared to tell you, he was worried that if we told the truth you would be afraid of us and blame us and you'd run off on your own…" he confessed.

She sat in silence for a few moments absorbing the new information. The intermittent thunder booming and patter of rain from the storm outside was the only noise they could hear. Kyle stared at her trying to determine if she was mad at him or afraid of him or if she was going to cry or be flooded with memories. Instead she just nodded her head softly with a small smile on her face.

"Thanks for tellin' me Kyle. So my group was alive and they left with Noah? How do you know where they're goin'?" there was a spark in her eye, she looked happy to hear that her group had been alive and well. The blonde also looked determined, her face somehow serious even with the corners of her lips turned up.

"Yup, they were alive over a month ago… but I guess that's no guarantee that they're alive now. It's only a guess that they're taking Noah up to Virginia, because he talked to us a few times about his family living in a community with walls up there and that was where he said he would go whenever he earned his freedom from Grady. It was the only lead we had and we knew that Noah would help you whenever we got there. I don't know if they're still alive, or if they are really going there, it could just be a dead end," he didn't want to get her hopes up and didn't want her to try to run off on her own in case the town had been overrun.

She smiled even bigger though, it was a warm smile that made her eyes squint, and replied jovially, "It wouldn't kill you to have a little faith."

He had a moment of confusion. This was exactly what he would have expected his late wife, Lisa, to say. Some moments Beth seemed so young and naïve, like a daughter or little sister he needed to babysit, but other moments she was wise and charming, reminding him of his wife. Her faith—in humanity, in him even though he had lied, and in reuniting with her family—it all astonished Kyle. He was actually speechless as he stared at Beth, still slightly damp from the rain huddled in the blanket and smiling at him from her place on the floor.

_How has a genuinely good person like her survived in this world? How can she still have faith after getting shot in the head?_ he wondered to himself.

His musings were broken by a loud crash from the front of the store.

"The doors!" Kyle shouted, jumping to his feet and grabbing his ice axe off the floor next to him.

Beth was already standing, machete in hand, as they ran from their card game to see what had gotten into their hideout.

/

**A/N:** Please don't hate me for the cliffhanger **runs and hides**

Next chapter is a DARYL CHAPTER! You excited? Because I am. Let me know if there is anything specific you want me to address in the chapter.

Thanks for reading, favoriting and following! It makes me happier than Michonne reuniting with her katana (well, maybe not happier, but equally happy).

I'm sorry if this chapter was slow, I really struggled with it but I felt it was necessary for Beth to finally hear about her past… please review to tell me what you thought of the end product.

Also, message me if you write any Bethyl fics! I am always looking for new ones to read. (:


	5. Alone

**A/N: **Got it out in less than a week because I was too excited. Thanks for all the support/follows/favorites. Please leave reviews (good or bad, I love the feedback!)

Companion song: "All I want" by Kodaline

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

/

**Chapter 5: Alone**

He couldn't let go of her body. Their family evaded the walkers and piled into the cars, Daryl got in the fire engine with Glenn, Maggie, Michonne, Abe, Eugene and Rosita. Beth was cradled in his lap, still and silent.

Maggie was sobbing uncontrollably into Glenn's shoulder; he also seemed shocked but he was stroking Maggie's back consolingly. Michonne sat stoically on his left and kept glancing over at Daryl and Beth—he knew that the samurai was astute and she was observing his reaction. The three newcomers in the front seat occasionally spoke softly about where they were going or which route they should take to get out of the city but Daryl was lost in his thoughts, numb, so he didn't actually hear them.

He didn't care where they were going. He didn't care if they stumbled into a herd of walkers. He had lost all of his hope the moment Dawn's gun went off, the moment he saw the red spilling out over Beth's blonde hair.

Daryl had shot Dawn without thinking; it had been a reaction to seeing someone hurt Beth. Somehow, he thought he could take it back. Like if he just shot the cop it would reverse time and Beth would be okay.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that the world didn't work like that. He could hear his own voice talking to Beth on one of their last days together, _"I don't think the good ones survive." _

But knowing this, knowing that good people couldn't last in this world, had not prepared him for seeing her now.

Broken, bloodied and motionless.

The last time he held her in his arms like this, in the kitchen of the funeral home, she was laughing gleefully with her hands gripped around his neck. Remembering this made his heart clench so painfully that he would have fallen over if he were not already sitting down. He locked these memories away; he wouldn't let feelings overwhelm him in front of all these people. Beth had caused his defenses to crumble but now he needed to start putting his walls back up.

Daryl reached over, swept some of the hair off of her face and used the handkerchief in his back pocket to wipe away some of the blood on her throat. Her body was motionless but it was still Beth.

From his position, holding her small frame in his arms with her eyes closed softly, it almost looked like she was sleeping.

But he pushed this hopeful thought down into the deepest caverns of his mind too. Mentally adding all of his other happy memories of Beth that were now kindling for a fire of misery.

He tried to grasp the immense and incomprehensible truth… that she was gone.

She is gone.

She is gone.

No matter how many times he repeated it in his head, he couldn't believe it.

He would never see her smile again, never hear her sweet singing, never have her small porcelain fingers intertwine with his. Never again would she help him overcome his demons. Never again would she manage to say the exact words he needed to hear. Never again would she remind him that he was good… and in Daryl's mind, this was ironclad proof that he wasn't good. Because he hadn't been good enough to save her. Daryl had believed, for the smallest of moments, that he could be good enough to keep her, the essence of divine innocence, alive.

Beth's motionless body was proof that the good ones don't survive this world.

/

Sooner than he would have liked, the huge fire engine ran out of gas. The entire caravan stopped and there were no other cars around to siphon fuel from so they knew that they would all need to squish into the two remaining smaller cars until they found another working car. This meant there was no room for Beth. But Daryl couldn't leave her like this, with a gaping hole in her head, unburied on the side of the road. She deserved so much better, she deserved a white marble tombstone covered in daisies, deserved to have a proper Catholic service. He wished Bob or Hershel was there to stitch up the wound but Carol stepped forward and offered to do it before he even asked. They actually found a suture kit in the fire truck.

With careful, steady fingers Carol stitched the entry and exit wounds. Glenn had taken Maggie away—they were sitting on the side of the road about a quarter of a mile up. Most of the group was standing watch to make sure no walkers stumbled out of the forest. Everyone spoke in hushed voices and was avoiding his eyes. Daryl stayed in the cab with Carol and Beth, wanting to stay by her side for as long as possible. He wondered what happened to her hand, because it was in a cast, but he would never have the chance to ask her. Even though Daryl hated shows of affection and he knew Carol was watching, he reached over and held Beth's uninjured hand. But it didn't feel the same without her squeezing his hand in return and soon he placed her hand gently back down onto the seat next to her.

While Carol continued working Daryl took his knife off of his belt and slid the sheath, branded with a D, onto Beth's belt. It felt wrong to be undoing her belt but he couldn't leave her with nothing. It was stupid, but Daryl wanted to make sure she was protected. And in this world, you needed a weapon. He also left his full canteen of water.

Daryl liked the idea of someone in need, on the run, stumbling upon her and seeking sanctuary in the truck only to find a knife and clean water. It would be like Beth saved them. This was the best thing that Daryl could give her—an opportunity to save one more person like she had saved him.

Plus, he hated the idea of leaving her alone, so he hoped this small piece of himself he left behind with her would somehow atone for that.

Carol finished sewing and bandaged the back of Beth's head before patting his arm and getting out of the car. All of the other group members came over in pairs or on their own and said goodbye to Beth in their own way. He worried he might be intruding on their private moments with Beth but nobody said anything; after spending so much time on the road and living in close quarters of the prison they were used to having no privacy. Some, like Sasha, stayed completely silent. Others, like Noah, had tears running down their cheeks. Rick came over with Judith on his hip. Rick bent over and gave Beth a light kiss on the forehead, the side that was free of stitches. He whispered something in her ear that Daryl couldn't hear and the infant took the opportunity to tug on Beth's shirt. For all intents and purposes Beth had been Judith's mother since the day she was born—Beth fed her, changed her, played with her, comforted her, read to her…sang to her—and Lil' Asskicker definitely knew this, seeking Beth's affection even while she was wrapped in her father's arms.

Rick gingerly removed the baby's grip on Beth's sweater and then looked over at Daryl. There was remorse and empathy in his eyes.

"Whenever you're ready brother, close this up real tight and we'll be waiting in the car," Rick was somber as he headed back to the rest of the group.

Once Beth and Daryl were alone, for the first time since the funeral home, he felt like he should say something: a profound goodbye, a prayer, a eulogy, something. But Dixon's were never any good with words, Daryl least of all.

The dirty, calloused hand reached out again to grip the soft, pallid one resting on the back seat. Just like she had reached out to him at the old gravesite. He ran his fingers over the skin on her hand and noticed that there was one small callous on the palm of hers and this made him smile. The farmer's daughter was delicate, yes, but she was no stranger to hard work. Her body hadn't turned cold yet and for that, Daryl was grateful. The little warmth that remained in her made it easier for him to remember her alive—the warmth that always radiated out of her whether she was smiling for no reason or getting fired up and yelling at him.

"I'm sorry," his voice was hoarse from disuse. "You were right…You were right about everythin'. I miss you already."

This simple acknowledgement was all he could get out. Beth's little offhand joke, _"You're gonna miss me so bad when I'm gone, Daryl Dixon,"_ repeated on a loop in his head. She was more right than she could have ever known.

He stared at her beautiful face for so long that he could have sworn he saw her eyes moving under her lids. But he wrote this off. He was sleep deprived and in shock, what was left of his logical side knew that he was probably hallucinating. He wanted to memorize every feature: the soft arch of her eyebrows, fullness of her bottom lip, the way her collarbones protruded from her tiny frame. Daryl noticed the heart necklace that she always wore, the chain had broken and she had replaced it with a black string. There were two hearts, one big and one small. He had never asked her where it came from or what it meant to her, and now he would never know. This was yet another thing to add to his list of regrets where Beth was concerned—things he would have done differently if he had a chance for a do-over.

It was an internal debate. He didn't want to take anything from her… but he also wanted to keep a piece of her with him. So he took the little silver necklace and put it in the pocket of his angel wing vest. He knew it was selfish, but he figured Beth would have understood.

The sun was already sinking below the horizon, the sky quickly changing from orange to dark blue, and he knew that he had to leave. Making his family wait for him, on the open road in the dark, was putting all of their lives at risk. So after one final, tender kiss on her uninjured cheek, he closed the door to the truck and joined his family in the car.

/

Over the next few days on the road, the guilt ate away at him from the inside, making painful holes in his soul… eventually leaving a hollow shell of a man. He was as empty and as mindless, as a walker. Just putting one foot in front of the other.

Glenn was driving the van in his typical, slightly reckless way. Daryl had heard the others in the car teasing Glenn about how people were not pizzas so he had to be careful with the cargo now and other jokes about if they didn't make it to DC in under 30 minutes they wouldn't pay him. Daryl was too lost to find any humor in the jokes. Normally, Daryl drove any car he was in, unwilling to relinquish control to others, but his family did not seem to think him fit to drive right now. A small piece of Daryl reluctantly admitted that they were right, he was too preoccupied and distraught to focus on the road right now.

Daryl was still drowning in the sea of endless grief when they hit the Georgia state line. However, he was aware enough to see the big blue sign fly by outside his window.

"Goodbye, keep Georgia on your mind," read the sign with a big peach.

The moment was hugely significant for Daryl. He was finally getting out of the state that had held a world of suffering for him—from his abusive father, to the drug-haze years with Merle, to the death of a long list of people during the apocalypse. He felt a small glimmer of hope inside him. It was dim, like a single candle lit at the bottom of an endless cavern, but it was there. Maybe life outside of Georgia would be better; maybe he could escape his past. The thought was involuntary, and foreign to him. Feelings of hope were something he only ever associated with Beth and he couldn't help but think desperately of how happy she would be if she were there.

It was the first of so many moments that Beth should have been there for.

He wished she was there with him, wished they could leave this shithole together. But instead, she was doomed to fade into dust in the Georgia heat, unburied just like her father.

Every night he was haunted by nightmares. Mostly they were about losing Beth. Some nights the scene from the hospital replayed over and over, he just watched her head whip back upon impact from the bullet. Other nights, she was kidnapped again and he simply ran after her forever, like he was on a treadmill that rotated endlessly. A sense of helplessness came along with these dreams… and a sense of self-loathing. Daryl hated being helpless. He would always go down with a fight. The self-loathing was because they were not really dreams, they were memories and he had really let those terrible things happen to Beth. In other horrible dreams, he found her as a walker and had to put her down, just like Merle. These nights left him in a panic, waking with a start and his heart pounding.

However, the most painful nights were the ones where everything was normal in his dreams—seeing Beth in the prison caring for Judith, the exchange at the hospital going perfectly well, Beth hugging him and the rest of their family, or his subconscious filling in what would have happened if he had never opened the door in the funeral home. These were the worst because he would wake up happy. For just one moment upon waking he was completely unaware that it had been a dream, having been sucked into the false, blissful dreamland. But then he would look around, taking in his surroundings. Upon not finding the bright blonde hair among his sleeping family, the cruel reality would wash over him, like rinsing fresh wounds with lemon juice and salt.

Needless to say, Daryl was not sleeping much. The dreams that haunted him kept sleep just out of arm's reach. He volunteered for watch shifts in order to avoid sleeping and when Rick forced him to leave his post he would keep himself awake by punching his leg. Daryl slept only the absolute minimum he physically could, which kept the dreams away but did not help his focus or health. He felt like a car running on fumes.

He kept thinking back to Rick's plan in the hospital. Why had Daryl sided with Tyreese? It seemed like the more humane plan at the time, just switching people, no bullets flying. But he should have just stayed out of the decision-making, should have left it up to Rick. Every time he made a decision it got someone killed. Sophia had died in the same woods he had searched; Zach had died while Daryl was leading a run; Hershel died when he stopped looking for The Governor… and then Beth. Beth died because he had been too distracted, too damn stupid, to look out that front door of the funeral home before he opened it. She had been taken while he was supposed to be protecting her and then when he finally got the chance for redemption, he picked the wrong plan to help get her back.

Then Tyreese died too. In his morbid state, Daryl found a way to blame himself for this as well. He should have been in the group that went to check out Noah's old neighborhood, he was a strong fighter and a good shot, he might have been able to save Tyreese. But he was still so out of it that Rick didn't let him go. So he stayed behind and continued his mourning while everyone else did the hard work and they lost another member of their family.

/

Weeks had passed but Daryl was nearly oblivious to the passage of time. He had progressed from a fog of sorrow into a sense of callous indifference. He sensed the whispers of the group but he didn't care. Saw them glancing at him when they thought he wouldn't notice. Could hear the questions that flew around him in hushed voices.

But he could not have answered them even if he wanted to because he knew that they were asking the same questions he was asking himself: What was his problem? Why did Beth's death still press on his heart with the weight of a semi truck? Why hadn't he felt like this when anyone else died? When would he snap out of it?

Daryl didn't have any real answers, only his own suspicions about why he was still so distraught. He had a nagging feeling about the similarities between his current spiral into delirium and Rick's lunacy after Lori died. He thought back to the last night in the funeral home, the conversation that was interrupted. He tried to fill in the blanks: what her reaction meant, what he would have said to her, what the days following would have held for them. But of course, he didn't have any real answers to these questions either. The only thing he did know was that whatever this feeling was… it was something he had never known before.

/

**A/N: **No cliffhanger this time y'all (:

**Next chapter is ACTION PACKED** and you will find out who/what broke into the store where Beth and Kyle are hiding.

As always, thanks for reading!

**Please leave a review in that little box below before you leave!** I would love to hear what you thought of the Daryl chapter. Hopefully it wasn't too sappy but it was important for Daryl's character development and it will set up some things in the future *wink wink*


	6. Disturbance

*****WARNING***** this chapter contains explicit content, violence and sexual assault. Please let me know if you feel I should change the rating.

**A/N: Thank you so much for all the follows, favorites &amp; reviews (**Emberka-2012, .75, Heidi191976, DarylDixon'sLover and Guest)**! They make me super happy—even the simplest thing from you readers make a significant difference in my day :)**

**As for the question of when our two favorite characters will meet…welllllll that is a surprise. I do say in my summary that this is a "very slow burn" so please be patient (see the notes at the end of this chapter for my full rant about why I have my story set up this way). But don't fear Bethylers—they will meet (I already have it written) and it will get gooooood (I already have their first 'exploit' planned and it is nothing like I have ever read on ff). Have faith, I live in Delusional-land just like you. ;)**

Companion song: "You Could Be Mine" –Guns n' Roses

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

This chapter picks up right were we left Kyle and Beth, let's see who/what broke in….

/

**Chapter 6: Disturbance **

Beth's breathing was already ragged from adrenaline before she got to the front of the store. At the last second she had the sense to stop in the isle, not wanting to go blazing around the corner to draw attention to herself. She wanted to see if she could gauge the size of the threat before approaching it or before it saw her. If it was only one rotter, they could easily take it down. However, if it was a herd, they would have to try to reach the back door before the dead caught them.

Unfortunately, that was when Kyle came barreling up behind her, axe raised, and he stormed straight into the open space at the front of the store. Beth nearly cursed out loud.

The glass door was shattered.

She expected rotters to be shambling around and growling but there were none to be seen. Kyle was standing frozen, searching for the threat that had busted the door. Beth's stomach seemed to clench and her brain went into overdrive.

_There's no growling… it's not walkers. There are people here somewhere. _

The thought popped into her head so quickly that she did not have time to analyze where the term "walker" came from.

Without hesitation, she shoved her smaller knife down the front of her jeans. With the storm blocking the midday sun there was not enough light in the store for the strange bulge to be seen. The Glock in her back waistband was too big to hide since she was still only wearing a tight, navy tank top, so she carefully and silently slid it under the shelf closest to her. Beth knew if people were there, they would likely be able to overpower her and would probably strip her of the weapons on her person. The less weapons they found on her, the less weapons they would have to use against her. Clearly, the people were hiding, waiting to trap Beth and Kyle.

Beth was prepared to play dumb and walk into their trap. She didn't know how many people there were or what they would do to them… but if they only saw her as a weak, stupid girl that would be to her advantage. Kyle had taught her that underestimating your opponent was the most dangerous thing you could do in a fight.

Just as she stood up, ready to walk out of the aisle to join Kyle, someone jumped out on his left.

The first blow connected hard with Kyle's temple but he reacted swiftly.

Years of self-defense training kicked in as he began expertly dodging the attacker's punches. For a moment, Beth was mesmerized. The attacker was definitely bigger than Kyle, he was over 6'4" and was probably 80 pounds heavier, but that didn't matter because his technique was sloppy. Kyle was smaller but had considerably more skill.

Beth's eyes scanned the shadows in the store and counted 3 dark shapes. She could tell from the height and figures that all 3 of them were men. She contemplated grabbing her gun. Maybe she could get to it and fire off rounds before their attackers had time to react. One of them had a large knife in his hand, another had a revolver, and the last had a recurve bow with an arrow already nocked, ready to fly. Her survey of the men had only taken a second, but it was one second too long, they were all armed and now they could tell that Kyle was dangerous.

A bolt of lightning illuminated the store for an instant and she realized that the third man's arrow was pointed straight at her. She had no ideas of how they would get out of this. She could run but that would mean leaving Kyle behind.

Beth wouldn't leave anyone behind.

Kyle and the unnamed attacker were still engaged in a dance of deadly punches. The attacker had blood running down his nose and seemed unable to put much weight on his left leg but Kyle appeared uninjured.

The man with the gun shouted, "Jack, help him out! Ned, keep your arrow on blondie, don't let 'er run… She's mine."

His eyes flitted away from the fight and scanned her body in a way that made her wish she were wearing a parka instead of her small tank top.

Just as the man with the knife, evidently named Jack, moved to help his buddy in the assault. However, Kyle's leg shot out and connected with the man's left knee cap. He crumpled over which gave Kyle the opportunity to reach for his ice axe that had fallen to the ground. A sickening crack seemed to echo in the store as Kyle's axe connected with the attacker's temple. This fight ended as the unnamed man slumped to the floor. However, before Kyle could pull the axe from his first attacker's skull, Jack was upon him with the knife pressed to his throat.

The leader had begun to creep closer towards Beth and she gripped the machete harder. She was torn, she wanted to fight until her dying breath but her instincts were telling her that acting weak was going to save her. She needed them to underestimate her, to let their guards down.

As she saw Jack draw blood from Kyle's neck, she started to run towards them, ready to fight alongside Kyle. She heard an arrow whoosh by, but it didn't touch her. The archer would need to reload, which meant she had a few more seconds.

An ear-splitting bang echoed around the store.

Beth watched in horror as Kyle howled in pain and doubled over.

"Freeze blondie. Or the next one goes in his heart." The man with the gun was poised with his back to the door now. His black hair rustled in the wind coming in from the shattered door behind him. This man was clearly the leader and he was definitely not stupid. It was clear that he knew that pointing the gun at her would not have been a deterrent but threatening her sole companion had made her halt.

"Well, at least we know she can follow orders real good, huh boys? She'll make a good little slave," he gave a chuckle at his joke and the man behind Kyle let out loud laugh. She noted that Ned did not seem to find amusement in this.

Everyone stood still, taking each other in.

Beth studied their assailants. The archer, Ned, had gotten another arrow from his quiver but the bow was pointed lazily at the ground… he was unprepared, or he had believed she wasn't a threat. Jack was still holding the knife to Kyle's throat but he had loosened his grip slightly as he stood with his eyes on their unnamed leader, it was clear that Jack was only doing as he told. The leader was the one who made her skin crawl. His eyes were hard and menacing so dark that she couldn't tell where his pupils ended and his iris began, but his mouth was pulled into a huge, sinister smile.

Beth knew that they were checking her out, sizing her up too. So she did her best to appear weak, she slumped her shoulders and forced her eyes tear up.

She glanced briefly at Kyle who seemed confused at first, but then it clicked. Beth could see the understanding in his eyes… she was following his advice after all. He had been the one who told her that it could be an advantage if her enemies underestimated her.

Looking at Kyle, she took in the extent of his injuries. There was some red dripping from the slice in his neck and swelling on his face. The blood was pouring out of the bullet wound down his right leg, which was the part that worried Beth. He wouldn't be able to run. In this perilous world, running was essential. That just meant that they would have to take these intruders down the hard way.

They couldn't run so they would have to fight.

The leader still had his gun pointed at Kyle as he started to amble towards her, looking at her like she was a choice cut of steak that he was ready to sink his teeth into.

"What're we gonna do with tha' pair of ya now? I decided when I saw ya, soakin' wet on that roof, that I was gonna take you, blondie. I was going to take him down quick, put 'im out of his misery… but then he went and killed Danny." The leader's dark, menacing eyes never left her. He was talking about Kyle like he wasn't even there. "Now I think he has to suffer." And with this, a venomous smile stretched across his face.

Beth could not imagine that anyone had ever been this happy about making another human being suffer.

"Is he your boyfriend?" the leader asked this in a mocking, singsong voice. "Maybe we can watch 'im give ya one more porkin' before we finish him off."

Beth didn't know what to say. Kyle was not her boyfriend; this thought had never even crossed her mind. If she lied and said he was, would the stranger show mercy or not?

As she looked into his eyes, cold as marbles, she knew he was incapable of mercy, regardless of what her answers were. He didn't care about her answers, he was just entertaining himself by tormenting her.

He was a cat playing with his prey before the kill.

"No. He's my brother." She lied. She managed to make her voice sound timid and scared in order to keep up her façade of weakness. It was the closest thing she could use to describe their relationship—Kyle had taught her and taken care of her like she imagined an older brother would. Plus, she was hoping that this would end any of the leader's sexual suggestions.

She glanced at Kyle then. He looked very pale, the bullet wound in his leg was still bleeding profusely. He was trying to stand, to stay strong but he looked like he was sinking on his feet. Jack had stripped Kyle of all his weapons, which had been discarded on the floor a few feet away, and he stood with the knifepoint pressing against Kyle's neck. But what caught her attention was the look in his eyes. He seemed slightly shocked, but proud.

_He's proud that I consider him a brother, _she realized. And with this thought, of saving her new brother—the only one she had as far as she remembered—her resolve hardened.

"Even better! He can watch me take his precious baby sister, right 'ere on tha' dirty floor," the leader was circling her now.

"What's yer name?" he asked politely, like he was meeting someone at a casual dinner party.

She still had a knife in her pants and she desperately hoped he couldn't see it as his eyes roamed up and down her body repeatedly.

"Beth," she responded curtly, forcing a hitch into her breath that he read as hesitancy and fear.

He was buying the weak-girl act just as she wanted.

"Well, how pretty…Beth" he mocked. But then the humor slipped from his voice, and his face was serious again. "Yer brother, he has ta' die. But you… Beth… you still have a choice." Her name coming off his tongue made her feel like worms were crawling out of her ears.

"If yer a good girl, ya drop that knife and behave, then we'll take ya in, protect ya and take ya with us." Luckily, he was only referencing the blade in her hand. He hadn't noticed the knife in her jeans still.

Death sounded better than being 'protected' by these sinister men.

She knew exactly what she would do.

Beth dropped the knife to the floor with a clatter, morphing her features into a face that she hoped looked defeated.

"Beth, no!" Kyle shouted from his place, but his captor hit him hard in the temple with the hilt of his knife.

"Shut up! The more you talk, the worse I'll make it on her." The dark haired leader, who still had not said his name, smiled threateningly and began unbuckling his belt.

Kyle looked at Beth with such a feeling of helplessness, his eyes pleaded for her forgiveness—he wanted to save her but he couldn't find a way out of this, a knife to his neck and an arrow pointed straight at him. They were outnumbered, unarmed and he was bleeding out on the floor. But Beth just gave him a small, almost imperceivable nod and she hoped he understood that she had a plan.

The archer, Ned, in the corner looked disgusted, he had turned his head away from where Beth stood waiting her fate. On the other hand, Jack, with the knife still pressed into Kyle's neck, looked intrigued and excited.

She felt eerily calm. As the stranger came within inches of her, she felt no fear. But she continued to pretend she was afraid, he needed to think he was still in control.

That's when she turned and ran.

Beth didn't get very far, she got to the end of the aisle before he grabbed her shoulder and slammed her to the ground with a horrible thud. It was the perfect place, just where she planned to get caught. She heard a clatter and knew he had ditched his gun in order to get to her. Her stomach on the cold floor, she was thrashing, making a show of the struggle. His weight on top of her made it hard to get air into her lungs. Grabbing her hair, he violently rolled her over onto her back and pressed his full weight on her again. His hands went to her thin tank top, ripping it in his attempt to pull it up, and then he began fumbling with her jeans. And as he was focused on that task, her hands slowly reached along the floor, searching for something… She continued her half-hearted attempts to push him off.

As she felt his fat, greedy hands pushing her jeans down her hips, her hands finally reached the cold, hard metal that she was searching for. The gun she had hidden under the shelves earlier. It must have only been a few minutes ago that she had stashed it here but it felt like a lifetime ago. Gripping the gun tight in her right hand, she swung her arm around, pointed the muzzle into his temple and pulled the trigger.

Time was frozen.

There was a ringing in her ears so loud that she lost her sense of what was up or down. The sound made the bullet hole in her own head throb.

His body collapsed onto her, but she was not entirely sure he died for a moment… his weight had already been pressing on her before she had pulled the trigger. But as she looked over at the blank, unmoving face of her attacker, his eyes still open, she knew he was dead.

Beth heard another shot in the background. She heaved the dead man off of her and jumped to her feet, prepared to fight the other two men, hoping to God that Kyle was the one who had fired the gun… not the one it had been pointed at.

When she came back out of the aisle, she saw Jack's body on the ground surrounded by a pool of blood. Kyle was standing with the gun pointed to the archer's head, who was laying flat on the ground, staring up at Kyle in horror. His bow had slid across the tile floor, wet from where the men had tracked in water from the storm still raging outside.

Beth was certain that Kyle would shoot him at any moment. Somehow, this didn't sit right with her and she had to reflect on why she was feeling mercy for this stranger.

She realized that only the leader had spoken since they had entered the store, the two other men had not actually said anything during the entire interaction. Ned had turned away when the leader had been preparing to rape her… it was as if he could not bear it. He hadn't hurt either Kyle or her; the arrow he shot towards her had missed.

"Wait." She murmured to Kyle, stopping him from pulling the trigger.

He turned to her, face filled with rage—not at her but towards the one remaining member of their attackers.

"Why were you with them?" she asked Ned hastily.

He paused. He hesitated, unsure if his answer would make a difference, just as she had wondered only minutes before. Finally he forced out, "I lost… my family. I just… didn't want to be alone… I didn't know what else to do."

Beth took a moment to consider this. She didn't have time to linger on this decision. Kyle was only running on adrenaline at this point and she didn't know how long he would be able to stay upright. The storm would have distracted the rotters a little, but she was certain that the gunshots would attract them. They needed to get their supplies and get to a safe place before the rotters came; the front door was shattered so this building was useless now. Thinking about the archer's answer, she couldn't help but notice the similarities between his story and Kyle's story from earlier. Doing what you needed to do to survive in this world, staying with bad people because they were your only option. She hated this, but part of her could understand it. Like Kyle said earlier, _good people who do bad things_…

"Tie him up, put him in the utility room, leave him a knife so he can get out eventually and let's go." Beth's voice was authoritative but Kyle still stared at her skeptically.

Ned looked disbelieving. She was showing him kindness after being exposed to some of the most horrible acts of human cruelty, rape and murder.

"He didn't do us any real harm. Enough blood has been shed tonight. We don't kill the living… as long as we can help it." The mantra tumbled out of her mouth and the words felt familiar—this code was something she lived by even if she couldn't remember where it came from.

"We don't have much time, let's go!" she was shouting now because Kyle was still looking dumbfounded.

Finally, he obeyed. Kyle moved swiftly to tie Ned's hands behind his back while Beth gathered all their belongings from around the store. Beth grabbed his backpack and the small knife out of Ned's belt as Kyle pushed him into the utility room. She dropped his knife and pack on the floor on the other side of the room from Ned.

"Don't follow us. If I see you again, it won't end well for you," threatened Kyle as he turned to close the door.

"Thank you." Ned's voice was awed and sincere as he gaped at Beth.

"I'm sorry for takin' your bow. And I'm sorry that you'll be alone now… find better people next time." Beth was genuinely sorry for these things because they would make it harder for him to survive. She was not completely certain that she was doing the practical thing, but it did feel like the right thing. Who was she to judge him—to decide if his heart was good or bad? She hoped that she was leaving a good person alive... after what she seen and done tonight she knew the world could use more good people. Beth decided to leave the decision of Ned's fate up to a higher power and she closed the door behind her.

She killed a few rotters that had been attracted to the store by the gunshots. They were feasting on the flesh of their three attackers. Beth didn't bother to put a knife through any of their skulls, let the scum wander the earth in perpetual unrest. She held on tight to her knife as she swung her pack, Ned's bow and full quiver, and Kyle's full pack over her shoulders. He held on to his axe in one hand and had their dead attackers' nearly empty packs on his own shoulders. He was limping horribly and Beth knew they had to get somewhere soon because he was fading fast. She wrapped Kyle's arm around her shoulder, helping to carry some of his weight, as the pair headed out into the storm.

/

**A/N: As always, thanks for reading! ****Please leave me a review/favorite/follow before you leave, even the simplest comment makes me feel like what I am doing matters to you****! Let me know what you thought about how Beth reacted to these new characters, how you feel about the man they left behind, if you think I should change the rating… etc. I hope it wasn't too traumatizing for anyone! Due to my own experiences, it was very hard writing this chapter—I struggled with how much detail to go into and where it should stop... **

**Next chapter is another Daryl one; it will be a mix of things we saw in the show and BETHYL FLUFF that we never got to see. **(I needed a slightly happier chapter after the assault.)

Now for the rant I promised:

I am sorry if you feel like this is too slow of a burn or you are restless for Beth and Daryl to just get together and fuck each other's brains out. If you are looking for a steamy one-shot, this is _not_ it. My story will play out like a more traditional book, with character backstory and more meat to it than a mushy-gushy "goddamn romance novel." I strongly feel that the writers of TWD only used Beth as a means to further _Daryl's_ character development. She allowed the viewers to see a new side of him, gave him a reason to open up to the viewers, gave him something to hope for, gave him something to be sad about, etc… all very Daryl-centric, without any real advancement on Beth's part. This idea was only further solidified when they killed her off in such an out-of-character, sloppily-written manner. It was a tool for shock value; used only to make us hurt for Daryl's loss, instead of Beth's life. Long story short, I am using this story as a way to do justice for Beth's character, to allow her the character growth that was unceremoniously stripped from her by TPTB. For this reason, it is about more than just Beth-and-Daryl as a couple. Don't get me wrong, I WILL build to that and it will be exceptionally hot, but as stated in my summary it is a very slow burn. So be patient, read some sexy one-shots to hold yourself over, and hop on the delusional wagon with me while I follow Beth's journey.

**big breath**

Rant Over.

**Thanks for reading! Please review (even if you just want to tell me that I suck, I still appreciate the feedback.) See you again soon, lovelies. **


	7. Numb

**A/N: Thank you so much for all the follows, favorites &amp; reviews. Special shout out to: ****SixJay, ****Emberka-2012****, Heidi191976, ****AinsleyE****, DarylDixon'sLover, lupadaisy****, ****Tania Ibarbia and guests for taking the time to leave nice comments. Y'all are amazing! **

**I had a really terrible week at work (9+ hour days on my feet for 6 days this week and I work everyday from now until Wednesday)… etcetera, etcetera. Anyways, leave me some love after reading to make my week a little brighter! Hope you enjoy the Bethyl fluff in this chapter 3**

Companion song: "It was Love" by The Elected

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

**This chapter is long. Sorry, not sorry.**

/

**Chapter 7: Numb **

Hunger pangs were the first feeling Daryl had in weeks. The van finally ran out of gas so they had to finish the journey to DC on foot but the group had not found any food in two days. Daryl was still in a fog, ambling around as silent and senseless as a walker. But at least he was attempting to be helpful again, he tried to hunt but there were no animals, not even a damn squirrel to catch.

Him, Sasha and Maggie all went out together to look for any type of food or water while the rest of the family stayed by the useless car. Daryl didn't get why Rick had chosen the three of them to go, this was the most morbid hunting party he had ever been a part of. They didn't catch anything; even the riverbed was nothing but cracked dirt. While the girls continued to search, Daryl started to dig. He found a worm and ate it—this was the lowest of the low. He could just imagine the insults his dad would fling at him. The girls were chatting softly about something but Daryl didn't feel the need to contribute to the conversation. He hadn't said much of anything in the last few weeks. Returning to the group, it was clear they hadn't had any luck finding food either.

_Who would have thought that in a world full of walkers, hunger would be what did us in? _Daryl speculated.

Somehow, from within his anesthetized haze, Daryl noticed the looks that the others in his group were giving him. Particularly Rick and Michonne kept eyeing him like they were worried he might grow another head. It was clear that they were waiting for him to break.

_They are too damn perceptive_, he thought to himself. _Or maybe I am just too obvious. _

Thankfully though, it looked like they were taking the divide-and-conquer strategy. Michonne gave Sasha a lecture about "snapping out of it" and Rick approached Daryl one afternoon on the road. They walked silently next to each other for a while. This was fine with Daryl, but he knew that Rick wouldn't stay quiet for long. Rick had his leader face on, the one that he always got before he needed to have "a talk" with someone. It was similar to the face he had when he came to tell Daryl that Merle couldn't come back to the prison, or when he told him about Carol killing Karen and David. However, Rick's face now was softer and filled with a knowing glint. Daryl didn't like it. He frowned at the horizon ahead as the men sauntered side by side.

Judith was in a pack against Rick's chest making soft cooing noises and staring at Daryl. The unofficial-brothers kept shooting glances back at the herd of walkers down the road, making sure that they didn't get too close or too numerous. Daryl counted two mile markers on the side of the road before Rick finally spoke up.

"It's been three weeks since Atlanta…" Rick avoided saying Beth's name out loud and this did not go unnoticed by Daryl. "I know you lost somethin' back there."

_Something?_

_I lost __**something**__? _ He thought savagely.

Daryl was angry at first, thinking that Rick was insinuating that Beth had been his or she was an object that he'd misplaced, like a set of keys. Anger was always his first reaction; it was ingrained firmly in his bones just like all the Dixons before him. But he calmed down. Reminding himself that Rick wasn't being malicious.

However, that didn't mean that Daryl was ready to talk about Atlanta yet, or the hospital or the huge, gaping hole that was left in his chest by the 'something' he had lost there. Hell, he would probably never talk about it, wasn't exactly one for discussing his feelings.

So in order to evade this conversation, he diverted their attention back to something else.

"She's hungry," he said. Judith was always a safe topic of conversation and Daryl was genuinely concerned for Lil' Asskicker. The lack of food, water, shelter was harsh enough on all of the adults so he couldn't even imagine how it was affecting the little one. Judith was truly the last good thing in this world, every time he looked at her he saw Beth caring for her in the prison. The archer wanted to keep the baby safe, now more than ever because he had failed with everyone else.

"She's okay. She'll be okay," Rick said dismissively. Daryl couldn't tell if Rick was dismissing the comment because he wanted to continue discussing Atlanta, or if he was just in denial about how dangerous their situation was becoming.

_Probably a little of both_, reasoned Daryl.

"We gotta find food and water." He was supposed to provide for the group. He was the one who hunted and who knew the forests. If he couldn't find sustenance and someone else died, that would be on him too. More deaths to weigh on his conscience... more faces to haunt his nightmares.

Rick kept talking but Daryl had stopped listening.

"I'm gonna head out, see what I can find," he needed to get away from these people who depended on him, away from Rick's concerned looks and away from that precious baby that only reminded him of Beth.

"Hey, don't be too long," conceded Rick, knowing that it was useless to try and convince Daryl to remain with the group.

Daryl slipped off into the woods. He wanted to be alone but Carol followed him.

"Ya gonna stop me?" she joked, attempting to lighten the heavy cloud that always hung over Daryl.

Daryl just wanted to get away from the others but he didn't have the strength in him to argue with Carol. She was a stubborn woman and she cared for Daryl, just like Rick did. He knew he would eventually have to endure whatever concerned-parent speech she had prepared so he decided that he might as well get it over with. She eased into the conversation, just like Rick had. Rick had started by talking about the walkers, Carol started by talking about the lack of food. Daryl was observant enough to note the similarities in their approaches to discussing Beth with him. He vaguely wondered if all good parents had taken a class on how to have difficult conversations.

"I think she saved my life."

Daryl froze under the weight of Carol's words. Carol didn't need to clarify who 'she' was. Of course Beth saved Carol's life, she saved everyone she possibly could… she saved Noah… and Judith… and him.

"She saved your life too right?" Carol continued but Daryl could not turn to look at her. She took his unmoving form as confirmation to her question.

"It was hers," she handed Daryl a small knife with a white hilt. It was tucked into a tan sheath and he couldn't help but run his hands greedily over it. Wishing, impossibly, that he could feel Beth's warmth on the leather or that holding something of hers would make her pop right back into existence. It was a stupid idea and Daryl knew that. However, it still felt good to have her knife. He had left his regular knife with her body in that fire truck. Hers would now have a permanent place along his own belt, another small piece of her he would carry around forever.

"We're not dead. It's what you said. You're not dead," Carol put as much conviction in her voice as she could, and he finally met her eyes. "I know you. We're different, I can't let myself—" her voice hitched here and Daryl knew she was thinking of the three girls that she had lost since the world ended, but she quickly moved on, "but you… I know you, and you have to let yourself feel it."

Daryl's eyes burned. After weeks of being numb, just moving on auto-pilot through the world around him, her words seemed to give him permission to crack open the box of emotion he had stuffed deep inside his mind.

It didn't escape him that he had not said anything to Carol during their conversation. But this was normal for him. The only person he had ever truly opened up to, really talked to, was Beth. Carol brushed the greasy hair off of his face. Daryl flinched at this intimate gesture. He was afraid for a moment, always expecting to be hit whenever someone got that close to him. Then she kissed his forehead, just like he had seen Rick do to Judith many times before. This affection was unprecedented for Daryl and he was still uncomfortable, unsure of what to do. But luckily, she pulled away then and walked off back towards the group, leaving him alone with Beth's knife.

/

The dogs came out of nowhere.

Daryl had always loved dogs. He desperately wanted one when he was younger, a companion to care for and to look out for him. But his parents would never let him get one and Daryl thought it was probably for the best. If his dad beat his own sons to a bloodied pulp, Daryl couldn't even imagine the abuse that poor dog would have received. Now dogs made him think, like most things did, of Beth. On their very last day together, he had tried to get the dog inside, that damn one-eyed dog distracted him so badly that he opened the door to a mob of walkers. A small, resentful piece of him blamed that shaggy dog for getting Beth kidnapped. Maybe he didn't like dogs anymore. But at the moment it didn't matter, this pack was going to attack his group and he wouldn't let any more of them get hurt if he could do anything about it. Just then, Sasha fired repeatedly on the pack, killing all three mutts. Daryl ate them without thinking, filling the emptiness of his stomach like he wished he could fill the emptiness in his chest.

/

On the road again, Daryl watched his group shuffling from behind. He could hear Maggie talking to Glenn about Beth—about how she didn't want to believe Beth had been alive, about losing her after only getting her back, about how she didn't want to fight the dark parts anymore.

He understood this sentiment completely, but he was still absolutely, vehemently furious with Maggie.

Part of him, a dark, savage part of him that sounded an awful lot like Merle, was happy that Maggie was miserable. She deserved to be tormented with grief and guilt. When the prison fell she had only looked for Glenn, Daryl heard the story about her leaving messages all across the state for Glenn. Only Glenn. On the other hand, Beth had been certain that Maggie was alive and had begged Daryl to track their family but it was apparent that Maggie hadn't spared a second thought for her little sister until Daryl came to Terminus. Then, even after Daryl told her that Beth was alive, Maggie still left. Went running off to DC with Glenn and a bunch of strangers while him, Carol and the rest of their family scavenged the city and went on a rescue mission.

Daryl was still seething when Glenn turned to offer him water.

"Nah, man," he dismissed rudely.

"Daryl," Glenn insisted with a look of concern on his face. This was now the third person from his original group who looked at him like this today.

_What's next? Is Carl gonna come give me a damn puppet show with a moral lesson too?_ he thought manically.

"Don't." Daryl was mad at Maggie, mad at Glenn for telling her that everything was all right, mad at the sky for not raining. Right now, he was mad at the whole damn world.

"We can make it together but we can only make it together," Glenn's words were unexpectedly serious.

It made Daryl's heart ache because it was something that Beth would have said. And, what's more, he knew it was true. They could make it together. But they weren't really together anymore; they had lost too many people. If their group had been a jigsaw puzzle, it would be missing so many pieces that it would be impossible to even tell what the picture was supposed to be.

Daryl felt his heart pounding in his ears, though he couldn't tell if it was from anger or sadness. "Tell 'em I went looking for water," he grunted at Abraham as he darted off into the woods.

The anger at Maggie and Glenn fizzled out. He didn't care enough, or have enough energy left in him, to stay mad so he succumbed once again to the numbness that had engulfed him for three weeks. If he ran into another person, he wouldn't be surprised if they shot him, believing him to be one of the undead monsters.

Painful thoughts of Beth pestered at him in the back of his brain. Small, but demanding to be felt, like a canker sore in the side of his cheek that he kept accidentally biting. He tried to push the thoughts back and focus on tracking and hunting while he walked.

Until, after a few miles, he came upon a cabin that felt eerily familiar. He dropped onto the ground, staring at the wooden structure and grabbed a cigarette. This was mostly out of habit, but also because the burning in his lungs reminded him that he did in fact have organs and he wasn't as hollow as he felt. The cabin reminded him of the one that Beth and him burned down only a couple months ago. The one where they drank moonshine together. Where he talked openly about his past for the first time in his life. Where he had given up all hope and yelled at the one person who was left in his world. And where he had found it again after her slender yet strong arms embraced him.

As Daryl sat against a tree, he thought on Rick's words from earlier and he realized that Rick was right in a way. He had lost **something**. Beth had been a light in the darkness that plagued this terrible world. She brought him a sense of hope that he didn't fully understand until after it had been snuffed out in that dirty hospital hallway. It was more than a person that he lost in Atlanta, more than just another family member. But it was also more than just "something." It wasn't something or someone that he lost. It was her.

He had lost her.

The pain in his heart was stabbing and searing, like someone stabbed him with a knife that was on fire. Daryl contemplated his cigarette.

_What would it feel like?_ He wondered.

Physical pain.

Since her death he hadn't felt real, physical pain… he hadn't really felt anything except for fleeting bursts anger or hunger. Daryl wanted to snap out of it, get rid of the hollow ache that had settled inside his ribcage. He just wanted to feel something other than the black chasm he was in, but he didn't know how. Emotional pain was not something he was accustomed to, he had put up thick walls when he was young, which meant no one had ever been close enough to cause him this much hurt before now. He had a long list of shit he was equipped to deal with in this world, but emotions were not one of the things on that list.

And so he pushed the cigarette into his left hand and watched the skin blister under the embers. The smell of burning flesh, now familiar from all the bodies they've burned over the last few years, violated his nostrils.

Daryl knew that it should be painful.

But it wasn't.

He couldn't feel anything, didn't even flinch. No physical pain could break through the layer of emotional pain he was under. Physical pain couldn't even compare to the pain of losing her.

Because he loved her.

_I love her_, he realized with a shock.

Daryl never even believed himself capable of love. He thought he was too broken, too irreversibly damaged over the years. But he had apparently been wrong. Beth and his new family had slowly, unknowingly been putting the pieces of him back together.

_I love Beth_, he thought again.

This time there was no surprise in his mind. This statement was an absolute truth. It rang so true in his bones that it made him uncertain of all the other truths he had known all his life, like the sun rising in the east or compasses pointing north.

Now, he looked to the sky. Daryl was not a religious man, he did not have faith or believe in heaven, but she had been religious and she believed in heaven. So for her sake, he believed too. If there is a heaven, he felt certain that Beth had a VIP entrance ticket. For him, the sky held more than the mere possibility of heaven. It reminded him of Beth: the sun of her white hair and the brightness of her smile and the blue, dynamic sky of her eyes that could somehow be both gentle and fierce.

They were eyes that he loved.

Eyes that he would never see again.

_I can't __**love**__ her… not anymore, because she is gone… I __**loved**__ her. _He corrected himself.

And with this thought, he finally broke down and cried.

/

Beth was not contained within the bones of that fire engine back in Georgia.

This was the thought that finally ended his mental breakdown. Beth had permanently altered him: gave him hope, demonstrated what faith was, taught him about right and wrong, showed him beauty within the ugliest world imaginable. In this way, through him, she would live on.

The best way he could think to honor her, to make her proud, was to try and live like she lived. This pathetic, useless sack of bones that he had become over the past three weeks was unworthy of her. He was determined to become a man that would have been worthy of her, or at least as close as he could ever be. She deserved to have a good man love her, and even though he was a dick sometimes, Daryl vowed to try to be better.

He remembered Beth's words in the bar of the country club:_ "All I wanted to do today was lay down and cry, but we don't get to do that..." _

So he didn't.

When he finally pulled himself up from where he sat, he was a changed man. He missed her so much that every cell in his body seemed to ache, yearning to find her. But it wasn't as painful as before. A weight had lifted from him, as if finally realizing that he loved her had relieved him from some of the pain. With the idea that she was in a more peaceful place, a place that was better than the shit left behind on this world, he hiked back to the remaining members of his family.

/

He wasn't worried about water anymore because he could sense the storm coming. The air was humid, signaling the moisture in the air, but that not entirely unusual in the summer. However, the smell was the concrete proof; it smelled crisp and earthy. Daryl had spent so much time outside in his life that he would know the scent anywhere. The last time there was a storm, he and Beth hid in the trunk of a car all night. He hadn't slept a wink that night. First, he knew he had to stay awake to protect her. She was the last remaining person in his family—he hadn't dared to maintain hope that anyone else was alive—and he knew if the walkers got in it would require both of them to even have a chance in hell at escaping. Second, he felt slightly feverish due to her close proximity, and not just because it was so unusual for him to be that close to someone else. Every tiny part of her that had brushed up against him seemed to light him on fire. The air in the trunk felt charged and intense, like either one of them could have emitted their own bolt of lightning.

He tried to shake these thoughts of Beth out of his head right now, he couldn't afford to be distracted. The note "From A Friend" made it clear that someone was stalking his family and they were very close.

When the rain started to fall, everyone else in the group rejoiced, forgetting their new stalker 'friend'. The group began laughing and smiling in unison. Rosita and Tara lay in the road soaking it in, Father Gabriel thanked the lord. Daryl wasn't happy. He was in his own bubble, unable to feel happiness without Beth. He was too consumed by his own thoughts to notice that Sasha and Maggie, his hunting companions from earlier in the day, weren't celebrating either.

All three of them, were lost in their own way… lost so completely that they couldn't even realize that they were not alone in their grief.

Vicious, black clouds were approaching quickly and with a vengeance.

"There's a barn!" Daryl snapped back into action after seeing the panic on Rick's face and Daryl shouted over the thunder. Rick's eyes were huge as he looked desperately over to Daryl for guidance.

The cabin he saw earlier was too small for everyone and too far away, so instead, he led the group to a barn he passed on his way back from the cabin. After settling into the barn, Carl and Judy crashed almost immediately next to the small fire. Daryl wished there was meat to roast. He tuned into the conversation in the middle of Rick telling a story about his grandfather, a war veteran.

Rick's story ended with "…We tell ourselves that we are the walking dead."

Daryl looked around at the group. Really looked at them for the first time in three weeks, taking in their despondent faces. This wasn't helping them, Rick's depressing story and his constant denial—first denying that Shane was a problem, then becoming obsessed with farming to avoid the governor and now his unwillingness to acknowledge what the group really needed. They needed hope, not a story about how they should consider themselves dead already. Daryl had been doing that for weeks and it was a terrible life.

It finally clicked for Daryl. They needed optimism like Beth had given him in the dark days after the fall of the prison. Rick was an excellent leader, but he couldn't do it alone. They were a team, the sheriff and the redneck. They had been since the first mission to rescue Glenn from those vatos in Atlanta.

"We ain't them," Daryl said gruffly, sitting up to put more wood on the fire. Some of the surrounding faces lightened, Daryl saw hope flutter at his insistence that they weren't dead on their feet.

"We're not them. Hey, we're not." Rick backtracked, he seemed upset and surprised that Daryl had contradicted him. But there was also relief in Rick's eyes; hope that his brother was coming out of the debilitating haze and hope at Daryl's words. Rick hoped that his kids wouldn't live their whole lives like they were now, as the walking dead.

"We ain't them," he repeated stubbornly before leaving the circle of people he considered his family. After weeks of being wrapped up in his own depressed world, it was a large responsibility to become the voice of optimism.

It was lucky that he did leave however, because as he walked passed the barn door and noticed through the crack a huge herd of walkers coming straight towards them. He threw himself against the door, shortly joined by Maggie and Sasha, the only two that were not enthralled by chattering with other people, and then eventually the whole group. Even Carl left little Judy crying alone on the ground. Her cries couldn't even be heard over the snarls and clapping thunder outside. As the storm raged, they stayed pressed against the only door to the barn. There was no way out, no other doors. They were trapped. Daryl was scared that at any moment the walkers would push inside or that the sheer pressure of them would break the boards in half and let them come crashing through.

It could have been minutes or hours that passed. Time didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was using every ounce of his strength to hold the doors closed. To protect his family that he had neglected for the last month. When everything outside died down, the walkers pressing on the barn doors suddenly disappearing, people drifted off to various spots in the barn and fell asleep.

It went without saying that Daryl would be on watch. He hardly slept anyways. Rick nodded gratefully at Daryl before scooping up the sweet, tearful baby from the hard ground and cradling her in his arms where he fell asleep. The air was soon filled with the regular breathing and soft snores of his family.

In the silence, Daryl's mind wandered back to its favorite topic: Beth.

His realization from this afternoon still swam inside his head. Daryl was in love with Beth. He thought back to their interactions, trying to piece together when that happened and how it snuck up on him.

_He remembered first meeting her at the Greene farm when she had been timid, a sheltered teenager. He hardly ever saw her outside the house. Daryl had known that it was her in the kitchen cooking everyone meals even though his rowdy group had invaded her home and brought a flood of trouble with them. He remembered seeing her in the stable a couple times caring for the horses, feeding them, brushing them and softly murmuring words of comfort to the animals. Daryl wondered now if it was her horse who had thrown him, Nervous Nelly, and what she would have said to him if he had bothered to ask her before he took the horse out. When he had been shot and was forced on bed rest in her family's house, she brought him meals and even gave him a few different books to pass the time during his recovery. They were thoughtful suggestions, it was clear to him that she had specifically picked out books that she thought would appeal to him and even though she didn't know him yet, she guessed well. She brought him "Heart of Darkness," "The Old Man and the Sea," and his favorite "The Call of the Wild." He ended up reading, and enjoying, the books Beth gave him over the weeks that followed on the farm. When Andrea brought him a different book, he grew bored with it and couldn't even remember the title now. Beth, and her books, helped impede the cabin fever that overcame him as a result of being confined to bed rest. _

_At the time he had told himself that he wasn't watching her, but that he was just observant._

_She was more nurturing than anyone he had ever met and this just became clearer the more he got to know her. On the road that winter she cared for a pregnant Lori and checked up on all the others, she couldn't provide them any food or protection, but Beth consoled them and gave each of them items she found in the houses they scavenged. Daryl considered them almost completely useless things: comic books for Carl, lip-gloss for Maggie and a new leather belt for Rick. At the time, he thought it was foolish to focus on comfort items when they were struggling to even feed themselves, creature comforts were something he didn't even have before the turn. Now, in hindsight, he understood that Beth was giving them normalcy within the shitty days where they slept with one eye open and had to constantly be on the move._

_One night, while the rest of their family was sleeping in the living room of a random house, Beth came and sat next to him on the floor where he was on watch. They were about a foot away and without saying a word she pushed a full pack of cigarettes towards him. Daryl noticed there were different kinds of cigarettes in the box and he realized she must have been collecting them for some time. He felt the corners of his mouth tug up involuntarily. It was the first time since his mom died that someone gave him a gift. With the dead eating the living it was strange what qualified as a gift, but a full pack of cigarettes was a pretty damn good one in Daryl's book. He glanced over to see the full moon light up her profile. But Beth, in that gray beanie staring at their little family, had still only been kid in his eyes. He reached for the pack on the floor between them, nodded gratefully at her, and he saw a grin break out across her face. She had known him well enough at that point that she didn't expect a drawn-out, exuberant 'thank you' from him. He was also happy that she didn't chatter his ear off like he would have expected from a teenage girl. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, she crept back to her spot on the floor where she laid her head on a curled up jacket. _

_At the prison, after Judith was born, Daryl saw Beth in a whole new light. Beth became that little girl's mother, caring for her at all hours of the day while Rick battled the ghosts in his head or worked on the crops. Daryl was drawn to the pair of them like magnets: the cooing, defenseless baby and the tender blonde who had transformed from a kid to an adult in record time. Back then, Daryl had just written off this attraction as a primal instinct to protect women and children. _

_Nights when she had Judith and he wasn't on watch duty in the tower or out on a hunting trip, they gravitated towards each other. Beth's singing drew in Daryl as if he was a sailor under a Siren's spell. If Lil' Asskicker was especially fussy the three of them would pace the halls of the prison together while Daryl rocked the baby to sleep before returning them both to Beth's room. A fervent animal in his chest would growl at him when the two of them were alone in the darkness of her cell, but he always ignored it and sought the solitude of his perch. On those nights he slept more peacefully than ever, something about having ensured that both the girls were safe in bed assuaged the worried animal that normally tore his stomach into knots at night. _

_Once they were alone, after the prison fell, everything amplified. _

_When they had been playing that damn drinking game in the moonshine shack, the animal in his chest came back. It was vehemently pushing him towards her, to reach over and grab her, to hold her flush up against him, to run his hands along her body, and whisper all his secrets in her ear. _

_It scared the shit out of him. _

_So he reacted in the only way he knew how, by doing the exact opposite of that—he yelled at her, insulted her, threw stuff, tried to disgust her with the walker outside. They shouted in each other's faces and a large part of him admired that she hadn't backed down, didn't cower under his anger but matched him head-to-head. Daryl tried to push her away but he failed miserably because she pushed right back._

_The animal inside him had purred contentedly when Beth hugged him, feeling every centimeter of her pressing against his back, her hands gripping his chest and stomach like a life raft in an ocean storm. One second he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, breaking down from carrying the blame for everyone they had lost since the turn, and the next, with her arms around him, everything outside of the two of them fell away. He forgot about walkers, about his empty stomach, and even about the guilt of losing his family. She was holding onto him with such intense need, it confused him. He thought she reached out to him just to comfort Daryl in his moment of desperation, as she would do for anyone, but it felt like she wanted to be close to him too. _

In the present time, he realized with a wave of disappointment that he would never get the chance to ask her what she had been thinking that day.

Daryl was definitely not an expert on love. Or really any emotion at all. No one could love Daryl. His father had literally beaten this idea into him. And with the blood that dripped down his back after the beatings, left Daryl's ability to love too. Or so he thought. He had always believed this, and Beth was the only real indication he had that ever contradicted it… Daryl, feeling especially self-loathing, questioned if what he felt for Beth was actually love. He was unworthy and incapable, wasn't he? What if he manifested it all in his head?

That last night in the funeral home still made his heart race. Beth laughing in his arms as he carried her, bridal style, through the house. The soft glow of the candlelight flickering off of her smooth skin looked amazing. He had to keep his hands glued to that jam jar to stop himself from reaching over and running his fingers down her soft, pale cheeks and the curve of her neck. The most breathtaking part had been her eyes though, sure they were a stunningly beautiful blue, but it was so much more than that. They had an ability to see right into his soul. Beth opened him up to the studs with the sheer intensity of her gaze. But those eyes were also soft, understanding, compassionate…

No. He definitely didn't imagine his feelings.

When he remembered their times together and tried to convince himself that she felt something for him too—sidelong glances where here blue eyes seemed to rake over his lips or his arms, Beth biting her perfectly pink lower lip as she contemplated him, small blushes that crept across her cheeks when he accidentally brushed up against her or when she caught him looking at her. What had those moments meant to Beth?

His heart felt painfully raw, like the tender skin that formed after a flesh wound, at the fact that he would never know what she felt for him.

Was it really called love if it was only one sided? If he hadn't even been aware of it while she was alive?

_Well, if it isn't considered love, Beth was certainly still the closest I had ever, and will ever, come to it_, he thought defiantly.

Each moment alone with her had felt like an infinity. Time actually slowed for them. She moved in slow motion in his mind, the better to appreciate her. And yet, each moment was never enough. Daryl had been such a coward. He should have told her that it was her who made him believe that there was still good in the world. Most importantly, he never should've gotten up from that table. If he had been man enough to tell her or even to kiss her, instead of running out of that kitchen, she would still be alive.

Daryl had racked up a lot of regrets in his lifetime, thirty-five years of saying and doing things he wished he hadn't. But this, the regret he felt for not getting closer to her while she was alive and not protecting her better, would haunt him forever.

/

As the sun came up and warmth seeped into the barn, Daryl saw Maggie stand up. Everyone else was still sleeping off the exhaustion from fighting against the walkers and the lack of calories in their systems. She stared right at him with such determination, but there was also something else, not quite pity or compassion, maybe it was sympathy… and marched over to where he sat.

"You should get some sleep," she said softly.

"Yeah," he knew she was right. Daryl had been awake for almost two days and his eyelids were heavier than lead.

"It's okay to rest now." _Now that Beth is gone,_ seemed to be the unspoken words that should have completed her sentence.

Maggie wouldn't meet his eyes now, looking out at the sleeping group, but when he glanced over at her he could see the lines carved into her forehead. She was sincerely worried about Daryl, just like Rick, Carol and Glenn had been yesterday. And in that moment, with concern written plainly across her features, he saw Beth in her older sister for the first time.

_Looks like she'll be living on in both of us. _He thought with a small, wistful smile.

Her eyes drifted over to where Sasha slept, sprawled out next to the wall. Even in her sleep, there was a look of pure anguish on her face—shoulders tense, brows furrowed and corners of her mouth pulled down into a frown. Sasha and Bob had only become a couple after the prison fell, and then Bob was killed. Consumed by the walker fever like a scrap of paper in a flame, until he faded into ash right in front of her eyes. Then, less than a month later, Tyreese went the same way. Lost her brother and her partner. Just like Daryl.

_At least they both got proper funerals, she got to say goodbye the right way._ _She didn't have to see her brother as a flesh-eating monster, didn't have to be the one to put him down. And she had weeks with Bob, got to live with the comfort of knowing that he loved her back and gave him a proper grave outside a church. She didn't have to leave the person she loved in a fucking car on the side of the freeway. _He thought bitterly. 

_What does Sasha know of pain?_ He scoffed.

But this was cruel and he was disgusted with himself instantly. It is not a contest. And as he saw the misery that plagued Sasha, his heart clenched for the woman. He wondered idly if his grief was painted on his face as clearly as it was on Sasha's… and if this was how the others felt when they looked at him. Daryl finally realized that they were the only two in their group to experience loss like this.

"He was tough." He said in an attempt to comfort Maggie. People were supposed to say nice things about others once they died. Plus, it was true. Tyreese was tough—not many people would have even attempted to care for three children who weren't even theirs.

"He was," she replied with a slight nod. But she still seemed troubled by something, eyes clouded and downcast.

"So was she. She didn't know it, but she was." With this, he actually grinned for a moment, remembering Beth's last defiant act. With her dying breath she stabbed Dawn in an attempt to save Noah and the other wards from a place that killed, raped, exploited and tortured people. He also remembered when she got her ankle caught in that bear trap, but even on the ground in pain she fired his crossbow and hit the walker just an inch below it's brain.

Maggie didn't respond. But Daryl preferred the silence. After a second, he handed her the jewelry box he had been working on while everyone else slept.

"The gear box had some grit in it," he said passing over the little wooden music box.

As pissed as he had been at Maggie, he knew that Beth would not have held a grudge and so, in an attempt to be a man worthy of Beth Greene, he decided to forgive her older sister and fix the music box. Plus, when Carl had given her such a frivolous object in an attempt to cheer her up, it reminded him of Beth during the winter they were on the run before the prison.

Little bits of her, it seemed, had stuck within all of them. Each person had their own unique piece of Beth clamped onto their heart and maybe, even if good people didn't survive in this world, fragments of them would.

/

**A/N: This was another long one [[[sorry, not sorry]]]. Hope y'all liked the extra little Bethyl flashback bits in this chapter. These were inspired by TPTB who explicitly stated that there are always things going on/interactions between characters that we don't see in the show. **

**As always, thanks for reading! ****Please leave me a review/favorite/follow in that pretty, little box below, even the simplest comment makes my heart content.**

**I have been having a lot of writers block—too worried and consumed by problems in my real life to allow the fantasy to take over—so PLEASE send me your thoughts or ideas on how to get re-inspired. **

**Next chapter is Beth and Kyle in the fallout after the attack. How does she react to being a murderer? Will Kyle survive the gunshot wound? **


	8. Pact

**A/N: Thank you so much for reading and for all the follows, favorites &amp; reviews. Special thanks to:**** .94,****NicoleTheresa1, ****Emberka-2012, ****Panda Blitz, ****SixJay, DarylDixon'sLover, lupadaisy****, ****Tania Ibarbia and guests! It means so much to the effect that my writing can have on readers. All of you make my heart happy. (To answer your questions I will only say that Daryl and Beth will be reunited VERY soon.)**

Companion song: "Came Back Haunted" by Nine Inch Nails

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

Now we pick up where we left an injured Kyle and our new killer Beth—

/

**Chapter 8: Pact **

After limping as far as they could in the dark, they finally took refuge in an old apartment building. It was a small, brick building, only two stories with some cars parked directly in front of the first story windows. This made Beth nervous, not wanting to run into any more people inside but all the other buildings nearby were only one story and she wanted the higher vantage point that the second story would giver her. Plus, she wasn't certain Kyle could hobble any further to find something better.

They had walked for the rest of the day and into the night. Luckily, the storm had died down during their escape. He was as pale as the moon that poked through the clouds. His dark, close-cropped hair contrasted with his ghostly complexion and he had a slightly glazed look in his eyes. They were both exhausted; Kyle from the blood loss, Beth from bearing his weight and from taking down all of the rotters they passed on her own. Kyle still gripped his knife in his hand as they crossed the threshold into the building, but he hadn't used it since they left the store. He was too spent to even lift his arm.

After she cleared one of the apartment units, she dropped him onto a sofa and set her extra bags on the floor before she turned to clear the rest of the building.

Kyle protested, "I can't let you go alone." He started to get up but collapsed back onto the cushions with a thump as soon has he put his full weight on his hurt right leg.

"Just stay here and be quiet," she hissed at him before gently shutting the door behind her.

She kept her backpack on her in case they had to run suddenly and she crept from room to room in the building. Outside of each door she paused, listening for any sound of rotters. Beth didn't want to knock in case it announced her presence to any live humans in the buildings.

Her footsteps were silent, like a nimble cat through a mossy forest. Beth had no idea how she learned to walk so quietly but she could tell she hadn't always moved like this. This hunter's gait felt forced and unnatural to her body still. But regardless of how awkward it was, she still knew how to be silent. And in this world, that was a priceless skill.

Overall, she found only two rotters in the entire building that had 20 apartment units. The corpses had been closed into one of the upstairs apartments together. From what she could tell from the wedding pictures on the dresser, it had been their apartment before the turn, it was hard to say for sure though because they had been so decayed that they were almost just moving skeletons. Beth guessed that they had lived there before the turn and holed up together in the beginning, dying shortly after that. It seemed morbid that they had never really given themselves a chance—just tried to lock the real world out.

The part of her that wanted to find the silver lining, however, seemed to think that it was good that they had locked themselves in like that because at least if they had to turn into monsters, they had never ripped apart a human. From their weak state, Beth felt certain that they hadn't fed since they turned.

_Plus, they were together when they died._ She thought.

At this, a soft smile crossed her face. She found that there something beautiful about being with your loved one until the end. Death was terrible but at least they had each other, they didn't have to live alone in fear or kill each other after they turned.

Beth returned to Kyle in the downstairs unit. His ashen face lit up with relief when he saw her.

"All clear," she nodded at him. "Let's move ya' up to one of the top floor bedrooms so I can have a better spot to take watch from."

They shuffled up the stairs and Beth addressed his wound once he had settled on a queen-sized bed in apartment 11, a corner unit. It was the middle of the night but the storm clouds had completely disappeared and the full moon gave her just enough light to see the bullet hole. She found candles in the apartment and lit them nearby to get a clear view. He had to take off his tight, bloodied jeans in order for her to see the injury properly. She didn't even blush at the sight of him in checkered boxers but she still handed him a pair of men's red basketball shorts from his pack. She cleaned his leg with a towel from the bathroom and what was left in a small bottle of rubbing alcohol. He winced and hissed when the alcohol flowed over it.

There was no exit wound.

The bullet was still lodged in his leg. Beth knew this wasn't good but she didn't want to worry Kyle more than necessary so she didn't say anything. However, Kyle was a smart man.

"It's still in there. Don't suppose you've got any needle nose pliers in your Mary Poppins bag over there?" he laughed at yet another reference that Beth didn't understand.

"Too deep to get out with my fingers… It missed your major artery though. I think I'm gonna just have to stitch it up as is and pray for the best," Beth was hesitant about this plan, but she didn't have a lot of options at the moment. "But it's your leg after all so what do ya think?" she asked him.

She was standing over him, watching the apprehension on his face as he leaned back on the bed

"I guess you're right. Just do whatever you gotta do," he replied finally, his brown eyes resolute and trusting.

_He trusts me to fix him up._ Beth felt a heavy weight of responsibility on her shoulders at this thought. Having someone else's health, and maybe even their life, in her hands was both a burden and a gift. She could feel the faith that Kyle had in her and she didn't want to disappoint him.

As she readied the suture kit and bandages, Kyle grabbed a pillow and stuffed it in his mouth, knowing that any shouts of pain would only bring rotters to their location. However, her stitching was delicate and swift so he didn't feel the urge to scream. Instead, he began rambling—his favorite distraction.

"Some fast thinking you did back there. Hiding that gun, getting him to chase you to the right place and acting all panicked, I even believed you for a minute there! Thought we were both gonners. But you saved us… _sis_," he added the last part to see how it would feel. It felt good and he felt a big, toothy grin take over his face.

Kyle missed his little sister, and he did find some similarities between her and Beth. He taught both of them how to fight, they teased each other but also trusted one another. Beth certainly felt like his family now.

He noticed that the corners of Beth's mouth, which had been pulled down into a deep frown as she worked on his leg, pointed upwards now too.

"I learned everything from you… _bro_," she tried the term now too and she nodded contentedly as she continued sewing his leg. She wondered distantly if she had any brothers or sisters and her heart constricted with the awareness that she would probably never know the answer to that.

When she finished with his leg and cleaned up the small cuts on his knuckles and neck, she ordered him to drink a lot of fluids and almost stuffed food directly into his mouth. Once they finished their quick picnic dinner on the quilt of the bed, he laid back.

"I'll take watch, just sleep as much as you can so you can get better," she instructed as she dragged a chair over to the window and crossed her legs delicately underneath herself.

Kyle was out in mere minutes. She could hear his steady breaths and occasional snores from her perch next to the window. Beth felt physically drained but she knew someone needed to keep watch; they couldn't afford being caught off guard again.

As she sat in the chair, her bones aching and her muscles cramping, her mind drifted back to the events in the store this afternoon. Kyle and her made it out, almost unscathed. They had been ambushed and outnumbered but they made it out with a few bruises and only one non-fatal bullet hole. She couldn't help but acknowledge how lucky they were and she cringed at the thought of how badly it could have gone if those men got their way. Beth said a small but sincere thank you to whatever stroke of fate or divine interference had allowed them to escape.

But there was a nagging feeling in her gut. It wasn't about the man, Ned, who they had left behind. Beth still felt certain that had been the right call, leaving him alive. The knot in her stomach was about the unnamed leader that she had killed in cold blood.

_We don't kill the living._ Said a distant, southern voice in her head. She didn't know who the voice belonged to, but she felt it was one that she could trust… one she should listen to.

Beth had broken this rule. Pulling that trigger, his heavy body going limp on top of her, the blood spilling out of his temple, the vacant look in his dark eyes. She tried to justify the murder, telling herself that he would have killed Kyle and abused her until he killed her too. Even though she knew these were facts, she was still disgusted with herself for trying to rationalize her actions. She was a killer. She had started with a fresh, pure slate when she woke up without her memory only weeks ago but she had already tarnished her second chance. Her clean slate was now splattered with the blood of the man whose life she stole, the man whose name she didn't even know.

Under the weight of this guilt, she now felt emotionally drained too.

She tried to empty her mind as she watched the sun come up. Kyle's steady breaths helped to soothe her by matching her own inhales and exhales to his. A few rotters had ambled by the building throughout the day but none of them gave any sign that they could sense that live meat was upstairs. The shadows on the ground outside got shorter as the sun moved higher in the sky. She paced around the room, keeping her eyes on the three different windows in the room, her 180-degree view. Finally giving in, she tore into her pack and grabbed some food, eating quietly as Kyle still slept peacefully. Beth couldn't understand it—he killed two people today and yet he seemed undisturbed. The sun was on its downward slope when he finally woke.

"Feel like I've been hit by a truck." He winced with pain as he took stock of his injuries and looked out towards the windows.

"Damn, I must've slept for 15 hours or more! You must be exhausted, you should have woke me so you could sleep," he scolded.

"It's all right," she mumbled, although her eyes were already sliding shut where she stood.

She helped him over to the chair, got him situated, brought food, water and his ice axe over into his reach.

"Wake me if you see anything," Beth said as she curled under the covers, drifting off as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Her dreams were haunted by the cold eyes of the man she had murdered. And she tossed in her sleep. She woke up after only a few hours feeling agitated and unrested.

Kyle turned to face her as she sat up with a frustrated sigh.

"You okay?" he asked, reading the tension on her face.

She shrugged, not ready to ask him what she needed to ask him.

"How's your leg feelin'?" she asked while she walked over to him to inspect his wounds.

"Hurts like hell, but it's still attached so I guess that's what counts," he joked. This comment made her freeze. The small blonde was remembering the dream where Kyle turned into the one-legged old man.

They sat in an uncomfortable silence as they ate and tried to get cleaned up. Beth knew that the silence was killing Kyle, she could sense that he wanted to fill up the quiet with some anecdote or chatter like always. But he held his tongue, knowing that she needed time to muster the courage to talk.

"How can you be… so calm?" she began. "After what happened… after what we did to them?"

Kyle breathed out loudly and scratched the back of his head while he considered his response.

"When my little sister was attacked, I was furious. I saw red every time I even thought about those scumbags who hurt her. When I saw those guys yesterday… and I heard what they were going to do to you… it was like I had finally found those men who assaulted her all those years ago. It's a strange feeling because if I had found them back then I would have beat them into the ground, sure, but I would never have killed them like I did yesterday. But it's different now… the world… I guess you can't really understand since you don't remember what it was like before…but there are no laws, no prisons to put those people in. It's either you let them go and take the chance that they hunt you down later or you eliminate the threat. I couldn't save my sister back then, and I didn't intervene at the hospital where all the women got attacked… but I learned my lesson. I wasn't going to stand by and do nothing while they hurt you. The options were kill or be killed," he was fired up, she could see his brown eyes blazing and the words fell out of his mouth quickly.

He took a deep breath, steadying the anger that had flared up in him "I am calm because this is the way the world works now. I spent too much time being scared and letting the fear distracted me from doing what needed to be done. Doing the right thing isn't black and white anymore; sometimes it means you've got to choose the lesser of two evils. And letting those guys go free… to allow them to continue killing and hurting more women… that was the greater evil."

Part of her understood this, it was a logical argument to just weigh the options and pick the path that was better in the long run. But another part still recoiled with the knowledge that she killed another living human. There were so few people in this world. Beth had been awake for a month and she had only seen six other humans— three of which they had murdered.

"I'm sorry, Beth. I didn't mean to scare you. I just want you to be safe," his eyes were fierce, his can of food had been forgotten in his hands.

"I'm not scared," she said truthfully. She wasn't scared, of him or of the men in the store. But that didn't mean she relished the thought of killing people, even if it was the "right" thing to do.

Silence fell between them again and Beth's mind was blank as she finished the jar of peaches on the bed. However, Kyle's was not. The crease between his brows and movement of his eyes made it clear that he was working up to say more.

"Listen, Beth." The low pitch of his normally easy voice made her eyes snap up to look at him. He pushed himself out of the green chair by the window and hobbled over to sit on the side of the bed.

"I need you to make me a promise," he continued.

"What?" She replied hesitantly.

"Well… you know that if someone dies, even if they aren't bit, they will turn," Kyle's eyes were still on her and she nodded slightly. "If it ever comes to that, if I am dying or bitten, I want you to kill me before I turn. I don't ever want to become a rotter, mindlessly scouring the earth to find people to eat. I want to be back with my family."

His eyes were distant for a brief second before desperately looking back at her. The brown eyes were pleading. This was his dying request and she couldn't refuse him.

"Yeah, okay," she said dejectedly, she didn't want to kill him but she wouldn't leave him as a monster. "But you gotta promise that you'll do everything ya can fight it. Don't leave me alone in this place."

It was the first time she actually asked him for anything, Kyle realized.

He laughed, unable to deny a request from her when she was looking at him like a child asking him to check for monsters under the bed, and replied, "Of course I will kiddo!"

/

The next few days passed excruciatingly slowly and they continued to travel north. Kyle limping while Beth carried the bags and killed rotters.

None of the cars they passed worked. Kyle said that if a car had been sitting around since before the turn, the battery would probably be dead. Their only hope would be to find a car that people had still been using recently, but the odds of finding one were slim. Plus, Beth didn't like the idea of finding a car that people had been using because that would mean putting them in the path of others.

The haggard pair only made it a few miles each day but they had moved off of the main interstate, opting to take the smaller back routes towards Virginia.

"Cities have more people, which means more rotters. Plus, people probably looted the big cities early on," Kyle had reasoned.

All the time on the road and on watch gave her plenty of time to finally consider what Kyle told her in the CVS before the group of men came crashing in. But Kyle's story only generated more questions about her past. She thought about her group, her "friend" Noah who lived in Virginia, and the "three big guys and a woman" who risked their lives to rescue her from the hospital. It must have been them who sewed up her bullet wound and who gave her the knife she woke up with... But if they thought she was dead why did they leave a knife and water? Who was the "too strong" guy that they had taken her from? Was he one of the people who came to rescue her? Was it the man in the forest who she kept dreaming about? What happened to her real family? Was anyone from her family still alive? What was she like before she got shot? Why had she been shot? The questions swirled endlessly around her mind like a tornado. She tried asking Kyle about some of them but he didn't know the answers either.

"I'm sorry, I wish I knew… but I tried to stay away from the wards. I was too ashamed of the lies and how we ripped y'all away from your families to face any of you," he explained with his eyes downcast. She noticed that Kyle did this whenever the hospital was brought up.

It was in these dark moments, when her mind was inundated with inexorable questions, that she was most thankful for Kyle. His incessant talking, jokes and games provided a distraction.

All the extra time they had also gave her the opportunity to continue training with him. He wasn't able to spar with her, since he still couldn't put much weight on his leg, but he taught her techniques and how to use various weapons they had collected. She assembled and disassembled all their guns until she could do it with her eyes closed. They didn't want to waste ammo or cause too much noise so she didn't get to practice shooting. He also taught her how to swing his ice axe with some skill. However, she didn't have enough muscles to wield it with the deadly strength that Kyle did, so he also gave her some homework. He showed her exercises to build upper body strength. Every night, after changing the dressing on his leg, she would do pushups on the floor and Kyle acquired a huge toothy grin as he counted down her reps from where he lounged on the bed with a can of food in his hands.

However, the most surprising day was when she began practicing with the recurve bow.

They had taken off her cast a few days ago using a small handsaw they found in a mom-and-pop hardware store so her hand was weak from disuse. But when she nocked an arrow and pulled back the string, it felt familiar in her grip. Something about the feathers running through her fingers made her heart clench. She already knew, without any instruction from Kyle, to breathe in, aim, breathe out and let go of the string. Her aim was fairly accurate too. The first arrow was only two inches shy of the knot in the tree that she was aiming at. Her second try flew straight into the bullseye and stuck with a small thud.

Kyle whooped loudly and pumped his fist in the air.

_He would be proud_, Beth thought as she felt her heart swell with pride.

It was another one of the strange, fragmented thoughts that she had come to expect. She was smart enough to recognize that they were a connection to her past, her memory fighting against the wall in her mind to try and break into her consciousness. However, she didn't know anymore than this. Who were these people, whose eyes she could sometimes see or whose voices would come to her briefly? The familiar, comforting faces that entered her dreams but were nothing but forgotten, blurry ghosts as soon as she opened her eyes. Beth guessed the "he" that would be proud was the guardian angel that she regularly ran through the woods with in her dreams. She still hadn't seen his face, only followed him, trusting the mysterious man to lead her to safety. But he was carrying a crossbow and she had a suspicious feeling that the dark-haired archer was the reason she had such excellent aim.

Beth continued to speculate about the man while she pulled the arrows from the tree and headed back inside with an unsteady Kyle.

Since it was a quiet and allowed her to take out rotters without getting too close, she decided to adopt the bow as her weapon of choice.

/

**A/N: As always, thanks for reading! Please favorite/follow and before you go please leave me a review in that pretty, little box below. I promise to update soon—****if I hit 65+ reviews I will update twice next week!**

(PS. does anyone actually like or listen to the songs I post each week?)

**Sorry that this chapter is a little shorter and later than usual. I had a case of writers block that slowed me down but the good news is that the next chapter is ACTION PACKED and will set Beth on the path towards our Bethyl reunion... Stick with me people. (: **

**Until next time, lovely readers. **


	9. Glass

**A/N: Welcome back readers! **

**I am sorry this chapter is later than usual… my dog, an adorable lab/beagle mix, died very suddenly and very violently this weekend. I have been so devastated and heartbroken. Please keep Sandy in your thoughts. 3**

I didn't make it to 65+ reviews this week so I will only be posting once, but special thanks to those who did review: Heidi191976, Tania Ibarbia, .75, NicoleTheresa1, Emberka-2012, SixJay, cherry1122, SarahCullen4, Panda b, WhiskeyGlass, DarylDixon'sLover. Y'all are awesome!

Companion song: "Losing hope" by Jack Johnson

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

/

**Chapter 9: Glass **

Trouble found them on the fifth day. The wound in Kyle's thigh was healing up well, his coloring was normal and he could walk again, though it was unsteady, Beth didn't need to support him anymore. Their pace was still excruciatingly slow—particularly because they were running low on water again. It was astonishing how quickly their bottles emptied and yet there was still a constant, dry itch at the back of her throat. Plus, the cans of food were waning too. Since first stocking up in the town where Dr. Edwards died, they had not found much food and they hadn't stayed in one place long enough to search a town thoroughly. Only a few items had been added to their packs but many more had been removed. They needed to ration better… if they kept eating like this they would be out in less than a week.

With this worry in mind, they decided to comb the next town carefully.

Deciding where to start their search was a struggle, Beth wanted to start at the houses but Kyle wanted to start in the shops.

"I am older and therefore wiser, young grasshopper," he quipped. There was a slight hitch in his step but Kyle's normal joking nature had returned and for that, she was grateful. Beth knew that it was a sign he was finally feeling better and the pain was subsiding. Although she found the humor impractical and even exasperating at times, it was meaningful because it was so purely Kyle. At times, she was jealous of his persistent humor. She wondered what would come that naturally to her and when would she rediscover it? Or was it something that was so irrelevant in this new world that she would never find it?

She conceded, turning towards the businesses and giving him a small punch in his arm.

"Ow!" he mocked, obviously not hurt but still rubbing his arm where she hit him. "You're hulking up those muscles fast, girl! You're going to have to get permits for those guns!"

A car repair shop came into view and they decided to start there.

"Won't be any food but maybe I can find something to help get a car going! It'll be good to teach you a bit about mechanics. Plus we can get you back to your group faster since I won't be hobbling around and holding you back." There was a soft smile on his face but it didn't warm the sad look that frosted over his eyes.

"What're you gonna do when we get there?" she inquired. The gloomy look told her a lot, but she wanted to hear it from him directly. They both continued searching the shop for anything useful.

After a long pause he responded, "I'm not sure, Beth. Your people... they saw me in that hospital and I doubt they will be thrilled to run into me again. I was involved in the negotiations when they took hostages to exchange for you and Carol." This was a new piece of information to Beth.

_Who is Carol? How did my group take hostages? How is my group any better than the hospital, taking people for their own gain? _These dark thoughts swirled in her mind, adding to the unending list of things she didn't know about her life before the bullet.

The most pertinent question was of course whom her "group" consisted of. Kyle always used the word "group" and never called them her "family." Kyle had described three big men and a woman, Noah, and now Carol. None of the names sparked anything in her inert memory. Kyle didn't know if any of them were actually her family members or if they were just people she had met along the road since the turn. She didn't think this was very likely, why would people she just met risk their lives to track her down and take hostages to get her out of the hospital?

"After all the shitty negotiations, and you getting shot at the hospital, I don't think I'll be welcome." Kyle shrugged his shoulders a little, not meeting her gaze but instead glancing between his feet and their surroundings.

Beth realized that it didn't really matter who they were or what they thought of Kyle. She couldn't remember those people but Kyle, he was family now, and if they couldn't accept that, then the two of them would continue on their own.

"Nah. We're a package deal now. You're my brother and we'll stick together."

As she said it with such sincerity, a visible weight lifted from Kyle's shoulders and she could have sworn that his eyes shone with grateful tears before he changed the topic.

"So do you even know how to drive or am I gonna have to find a 'Student-Driver' sign too?" he eased back into the teasing, seamlessly covering up his small moment of vulnerability before adding some tools they found to their packs.

When it was nearing sunset, orange streaked the sky but they had nothing to show for their day. They searched the several shops without finding any sustenance; the town had clearly been looted already.

"So… you were right… we should've started in the houses. I guess I am older but not wiser!" he laughed easily, keeping his voice low as they left another convenience store empty handed.

Beth wasn't listening though. She had a bad feeling creeping over her, heart beat picking up and her mind was moving quickly to figure out why she suddenly got the sense that something bad was going on. She thought back to the buildings they had searched. Eight different places in this small town but there had been nothing. Not only were there no useful items… but nothing.

Absolute silence in all the buildings. There hadn't been any live rotters.

"Shit," she muttered under her breath.

_Where are they all?_ She questioned, coming up with several possible answers to her own silent question.

Kyle was too far ahead of her to have heard her whispered curse or to notice that she had stopped in her tracks. But then he rounded a corner, stepping out from behind a large department store that spanned an entire city block. And that's when her question was answered.

There were hundreds of rotters all milling around the block. From the cursory glance she had gotten, it seemed like there had been a large explosion in the street. Cars nearby had been pushed and dented in strange ways. All the windows, including those on the third floor of some of the buildings, were blown out and Beth guessed it was from the impact of the explosion that attracted all the rotters. It must have been recent if all of them were still there, but it couldn't have been in the last few hours because they would have heard a blast of this size from the other side of town. The explosion was clearly man made and she wondered if it had been a trap to get all the rotters in one place or if it had been an accident. If it was the former, that meant people, possibly dangerous people, were close by. But even if it had been an accident that had blown away the living too, Kyle and Beth were not safe here with all those moving corpses so close by.

Beth pulled a stunned Kyle back around the wall, hiding in the shadows and hoping they hadn't been spotted, or smelled, by any of the dead.

No such luck.

Rotters began streaming around the building towards them. So Kyle and Beth turned and ran back up the street. Beth could have easily outrun Kyle since his leg was still slowing him down. However, instead of running ahead, she stayed behind him and killed the monsters that got too close to them. She used only the machete since using her bow would mean the arrows would be left behind.

"There's too many. They don't get tired but we will. Gotta find somewhere to hide!" she yelled, already slightly out of breath. However, they had finally gotten ahead of the rotters that were now trailing about 40 yards behind them.

"Up there. Bet there's a fire escape we can climb up." Kyle nodded towards a three story brick building ahead with an awning that was, amazingly, still intact. It looked like an apartment complex.

They were prepared to run through the alleyway to see if there was a ladder in the back, Kyle still in the lead. But there was a surprise in the alleyway. Rotters had flooded the alley from the back, crashing through the narrow space between the buildings like waves on rocks. They wouldn't be able to get through this way, so Beth turned to go back up the street. She turned around and saw that the rotters had almost caught up to them on this side as well.

They were surrounded.

Trapped.

And Beth saw only one way out, so she leaped onto the large suburban next to her. She turned and gripped Kyle's hand to help him up. A warning rose from her chest but the shout died in her throat.

She watched as a rotter materialized out of the shadow of the building and sunk its teeth into his shoulder.

A strangled shriek erupted from him. She yanked on Kyle's hand, still gripped rigidly in hers, and Kyle slipped out of the monster's mouth. Beth swiftly stabbed it in the head with her small knife and it crumpled to the ground. However, more were coming. The scream had attracted even more rotters, from where she stood on the car it felt like at least a hundred were barreling towards them.

Kyle stood on top of the SUV with her while she continued to hack away with her knife at the rotters that attempted to climb over the hood towards them. His shoulder was spouting blood like a garden hose.

"Beth…" he wheezed, "you've gotta go, now!"

She hesitated. Beth knew he was right and she knew that Kyle would be unable to scale the apartment building with his injuries. She wanted them to jump from the car to the green awning, break a window and get inside the apartment building. From there she was hoping there was roof access, where they could hide until the herd dissipated or a fire escape to climb down and escape the other side. She moved to give him a boost so he could jump to the awning but he protested.

"I can't come with you," he breathed. His dark brown eyes were somber but firm.

"I can't leave you behind." She replied with false sternness. She knew they didn't have time to argue and she also knew that he was right, he couldn't come with her.

She had a brief moment of déjà vu. Someone telling her to go, to run, and escape from danger while he stayed to fight off walkers.

"You have to. Take my weapons, and my pack if you can carry it. You'll need all of it," he said as he began pressing weapons into her hands and she tossed his pack onto the awning. She took out a few more rotters with his ice axe.

"I'm sorry," she breathed. Even in the dim light from the descending sun she could visibly see the life draining from him, color slipping from his face contrasting with the deep red of the blood that spattered his neck and saturated his shirt

"Go! I'll distract them… Be safe, sis." The severity of his normally jovial voice was startling. Beth nodded, an unspoken promise to be safe. However, she still couldn't bring herself to leave.

And with his last ounce of strength he reached his hands down and helped boost her over to the green awning. Luckily, the awning was very sturdy, made out of a thick plastic that easily accommodated her weight and kept her at a safe height above the insatiable monsters below her.

Unfortunately, the pressure that she had put on Kyle as he helped her off the car had caused him to topple into the street, into the rapacious hands of the rotters that began to rapidly converge on him, biting and tearing at any flesh they came into contact with. His brown eyes looked straight up to meet her blue ones, their view temporarily unobstructed by the heads of the dead. Kyle's eyes were pleading, full of terrible agony. Hers were blurring rapidly, filled with tears mourning the loss of her only companion, her teacher, her brother. She felt paralyzed, wishing she could help him, that she could reverse time and take away his pain. His lips moved, he was saying something to her. But she couldn't make it out. His voice was weak and the rotters were growling too loudly as they tore apart their feast.

_What is he saying?_ she wondered desperately. _These are his last words and I can't hear them! _

And with that, she watched as the light flickered out of his eyes. He was gone. After another second her view was completely obscured by the mass of corpses that surrounded him.

Her mind cleared. He had sacrificed himself for a reason: to save her. She needed to get out of here before the rotters realized she was still here or his loss would be in vain. She took the spike of Kyle's iceaxe and broke the window right above her. The petite blonde scrambled in through the window quickly, worried that the noise would attract rotters stuck inside the building she wanted to be upright when or if they came into the room. Kyle and her hadn't cleared this building earlier and it wouldn't do her any good if they came as she was stuck, compromised halfway out the windowsill. However, in her haste, small pieces of glass stuck in her stomach and one in the back of her shoulder blade. She shook this off, she would deal with her injuries when she was in a more secure location. She slung the bags over her shoulders, happy for once that they were not as full as normal, and made sure that her bow and quiver were on top so she could get to them if needed. Flying through the building, she made her way to the apartment on the exact opposite side of the complex. Looking out the window here, she saw that there were almost no rotters on this side of the building—they must have all been attracted to Kyle's screams in the front. She considered going down the ladder right away but decided to get a view from the higher vantage point of the roof before taking off into the unknown darkness. The metal creaked slightly as she scaled the fire escape.

The backside of the building and the streets surrounding it seemed mostly clear. She silently hurried to see the front of the building, where she had left Kyle. From her point on the roof, in the darkness that had fallen, the rotters were indistinguishable. Dark, terrible monsters blended in with the street and each other. There were so many that it looked as if the ground itself was actually moving.

Beth was conflicted, unsure of how to proceed now. Should she run into the night to an unknown location that would be safer and not surrounded by the undead? Or should she stay up here on the roof that she knew was relatively safe for now, and hope that the rotters dispersed quickly so she could have a clear exit in the morning?

Both options sucked and both depended largely on chance. She wished she had someone else to weigh in on the options.

She decided to leave now. The darkness would make it harder for her to see but it would also provide her with some cover. Plus, she knew all the rotters were distracted on one side of the building now but what if when she woke up they were surrounding the building, or if the rest of them from the other street came over too, making escape impossible?

As she turned towards the back of the building again, it hit her. Kyle's last words, the begging in his eyes.

He had been telling her to shoot him.

It was the pact. She was supposed to shoot him so he wouldn't feel the horrible pain of being ripped apart, so he wouldn't turn. Guilt gripped her so tightly that it squeezed the air out of her lungs. It was the promise she had made him and she broke it. Beth left Kyle to die just like Dr. Edwards had died, being torn apart by the teeth of dead humans. She was disappointed in herself, but she vowed to Kyle's soul—wherever it was—that she would do her best to keep the only other promise she made her brother. She would stay safe.

/

The night spent tromping through the forest was quiet. The only noises she heard for hours were her own quiet breathing and the occasional crunch of a leaf under her boot. After spending weeks with Kyle's constant monologues and jokes and the raucous of the dead as they had surrounded them on top of that car, the silence was deafening. It made her paranoid. She kept thinking that she had actually lost her sense of hearing, so she would occasionally rustle her fingers next to her ears just to reassure herself that her ears were still working.

The forest was dense, not allowing any moonlight to penetrate the canopy to reach her. Her eyes had adjusted after a while but she still had not been confident enough that she could adequately inspect her wounds. She had felt in the dark to discover that the glass shards in her were small but she wanted to wait until there was light again to pull them out and stitch herself up. Now, after hours of walking through the night, the pieces minced her skin further with every step and she knew she needed to get to a place where she could pull them out soon before they carved even deeper holes into her.

As she stumbled, half jogging and half falling throughout the night, her mind had ample time to wander. Horribly, she was reminded of her nightmares. The ones where she was alone running through a forest, just like now, and someone was missing. She truly was living in that nightmare now. And as much as she missed Kyle… it was not him that she wished for in that moment.

She desperately wished the man from her dreams were there to lead her through the forest. The angel that would certainly take care of her and guide her to safety. She could almost imagine those dirty, muscular arms warm around her, carrying her out of danger. The ache in her heart at this thought was so painful that it managed to overpower every other feeling.

Her hands instinctively grasped at her chest, as if it might burst open, and for a moment she forgot about the numbness in her legs, the blisters on her feet, the stab in her shoulder, the dryness of her throat, the throbbing in her head and the hollowness of her stomach. All that mattered was the absence of the man from her dreams.

When the dreams first started she believed that he was merely a figment of her subconscious—someone she'd made up to comfort her in her nightmares. But this pain, the longing Beth felt in this moment, convinced her that he must be real. As her mind drifted it connected the dots and she figured that this was probably the strong man that she had been taken from when the Grady Memorial people kidnapped her. She wished she remembered him, really remembered him, not just the vague, shaky image of his back from her dreams. Her brows scrunched together as she tried to summon him from the depths of her lost memory… but nothing came.

With the emptiness caused by this nameless man's absence still throbbing in her chest, she continued pushing her way through the trees.

Finally, as the first signs of dawn approached she became too exhausted. The adrenaline from earlier had burnt out and left her body feeling empty and depleted. Carrying two packs and not resting for any food or water all night didn't help either. She had hoped to stumble into the next town or a cabin out in the woods but hadn't yet.

So she set her packs down right on the forest floor and pulled out water, a medical kit and the hammock. There was only half a canteen of water left. After greedily downing just enough to wet her throat and pouring a little on the wound in the side of her stomach to clean it, she used her fingers so swiftly pull the shard of glass out. She removed her gray t-shirt, leaving only her tank top again and firmly pressed the material against the bleeding hole. The bleeding, which had started again when she yanked the glass out, staunched after only a short time. Beth wasn't sure if this was a good sign or not but either way she quickly threaded a needle and sewed herself up. It was sloppy but as good as she could do given the angle and the lack of pain meds.

The glass in her shoulder proved impossible. It was lodged perfectly in the part of her back that she just couldn't reach.

"Shit," she muttered quietly. How was she supposed to get this out? What would happen if she left it in there?

That's when she heard a noise for the first time in hours and it hadn't been caused by her. A twig had snapped about thirty yards to her right and slightly behind her.

"Need some help?" a voice asked out of the hazy forest.

In one seamless motion she dropped to the ground, rolled over her pack and grabbed her bow and quiver. An arrow was notched and the string was pulled back in her hand in a matter of seconds. She aimed in the direction where she had heard the voice. Beth's eyes raked over the man in front of her. He had a machete holstered in his belt and a tall walking stick in one hand with the other hand held straight up in the air as a show of surrender. There was a full pack attached to his back and a green poncho was tossed over it. His skin was dark, there was a scruffy black beard that a pair of goggles dangled around his neck, and his eyes were surprisingly calm. He didn't seem to be startled to find himself staring down the arrow pointed at his head. Beth didn't feel afraid and she considered lowering her weapon at the warm, kind look in his deep brown eyes. But logic won out. The last men she came across had been vicious, tried to rape her and kill Kyle. What if this man was with a larger group hiding in the forest and he was just trying to lure her into a false sense of safety?

"Didn't mean ta scare ya, ma'am. Just happened to be startin' my morning off when I saw you struggling with that bloody mess on your back," he gave a small smile that warmed his eyes even further. His southern accent comforted her, made her feel at home even though she couldn't explain why.

He was staring at her in happy wonderment. Not in the creepy way that the men in the CVS had leered at her. But he gazed at her as if he was just soaking in a miracle of seeing another living human being. At this realization, she slightly loosened the drawback on her bow.

"Name's Morgan. Sorry to stare, but it's been so long since I saw something other than walkers," he stated as he remained rooted to the spot.

_Walkers_. She knew that word. It had been the word that popped into her head before. Kyle and the doctor had only used the word "rotters" to describe them. Was it just a coincidence that this stranger used the same word that belonged in her subconscious?

Beth still hadn't said anything, but she glanced around them, trying to see if there was anyone else hiding in the forest.

"If ya don't want my help, that's fine. I'll just leave ya be and get on my way," he shrugged as he began taking slow, tentative steps backwards.

"Why do ya want to help a stranger?" she questioned sharply.

"Why? 'Cause all life is precious."

/

**A/N: As always, thanks for reading! Hopefully this chapter was fast moving and exciting. Annnnndddd there was a little nod to Season 5 Finale in there. **

**Next chapter will be LONG, and there will be some big time jumps because Beth and Daryl are meeting VERY soon ;)**

**Please favorite/follow and before you go please leave me a review! I could definitely use some support after my terrible weekend. ****If I hit 75+ reviews I will update twice next week!**


	10. Time

**A/N: Hi lovely Bethylers. Thank you so much for the kind words about my dog. I have been missing her so much… :(**

**I made it to 76 reviews this week so I am going to post TWICE this week! **

**This chapter is a Daryl chapter and is shorter than I expected, I cut it into two chapters because I didn't feel like it flowed well with the next one. Chapter 11 is going to be LONG and will be another time jump—we get to see a lot of Beth developing into the strong woman we saw through Daryl's eyes in chapter 1. The much-awaited Bethyl reunion is slated for chapter 12 or 13 so it's coming soon! **

**Thanks all for your patience and continued support by following/ favoriting/ reviewing/ reading. Special shout out to: ****Heidi191976, ****Tania Ibarbia****, ****SarahCullen4****, Emberka-2012****, ****walkingdeadlover38****, NicoleTheresa1****,****DarylDixon'sLover****,****moriahhh****, ****SixJay****, Panda Blitz. **

Companion song: "Widower's Heart" by Trampled by Turtles

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

/

**Chapter 10: Time**

Daryl had never been around many people. Even before the end of the world he mostly lived on his own, only venturing into crowds at the occasional bar with Merle. After the walkers decimated the population, there weren't really any people around to anymore but somehow that was when he found himself constantly surrounded by people. The farm, the prison, and now Alexandria. Only Alexandria was filled with strangers instead of just his family.

So he avoided the big gatherings that Deanna held because they were stifling, too many people and too many walls. Instead he would volunteer for watch duty or just ditch it altogether without bothering to make an excuse.

The job as a recruiter was the best job for him for several reasons. Searching for people gave him a purpose, distracting him from his grief, and allowing him the freedom to get outside of the gates and away from all the stares.

At first people gawked because they were scared of him: a surly, redneck that carried a crossbow through their safe little town. He couldn't blame them since he basically growled anytime someone came near. Then they stared because he was dirty like mud on their perfect white linens. Soon enough, he did clean himself up. It was a small defeat; showering. The last time he had showered, a real shower, had been in the prison while their family had still been whole, with Hershel, Tyreese, Bob and Beth. Giving in to a shower in Alexandria , willingly confining himself into a tiny, tiled box in such a vulnerable state was something he only did once he truly trusted a place. Plus, showering and changing in order to fit in with the community made it feel… permanent.

However, after he was clean and in a new, unbloodied shirt the stares changed. Daryl was an observant man, so he saw the interested looks that many women shot in his direction. It was similar to when they brought all those people back to the prison with them. His job with Aaron meant he found new people again, "saving" them as most would say, and it also gave him the chance to bring items scavenged from the outside world. Plus, he was one of the only people who still went outside the walls to hunt and bring in meat. The farm eventually had chickens and pigs but it took months to raise them in order to get any meat.

All of these women just annoyed him though. They flirted with him and tried to "thank" him in various ways that would have made pre-apocalypse Daryl dropping trou before he could even finish a breath. But now it disgusted him. They only liked him because of what he could give them or do for them. None of them actually knew him. Hell, most of them hardly even tried to speak to him. He wondered sometimes if this was what it had felt like to be rich before the turn. Shallow women throwing themselves at you because of the diamonds and houses you could give them, without actually knowing shit about you.

Either way, suffice it to say that Daryl was very much alone still.

But this was unusual in Alexandria. Even Carl had a girlfriend. Deanna had been obsessed with repopulation so she regularly and adamantly encouraged people to get together. At his regular meals with Aaron and Eric they called her "The Matchmaker." After she stepped down and let Rick take over, it only left her more spare time to try to set people up. Luckily, she had given up on Daryl already.

The process of Deanna resigning and Rick taking over had not been simple. He had killed Pete the doctor, Jessie's husband and a dad of two boys. The community nearly exiled him after that. There were a few factors that worked favorably for Rick. First, the rest of the family would have surely followed Rick if he left. And the rest of the family had already become indispensable to the community: Glenn for the supply runs, Sasha for defense, Abraham for construction. Second, no one liked the idea of exiling two children. Judith and Carl would not be separated from their father and only callous monsters would send an infant and a teenager outside the safety of the walls.

These were the reasons why Rick wasn't banished. But the reason people made him the leader was the way in which he handled The Wolves.

When the men rolled up to the front gates and asked to be let in, Daryl was instantly suspicious. On a recruiting trip with Aaron he had seen the fresh walkers with W's carved into their foreheads. Daryl was certain that those people had been intentionally murdered. The one girl that had been tied to a tree and starved to death still haunted Daryl's nightmares. Deanna had turned them away, merely telling them to be on their way like a solicitor who came to sell magazines on their doorstep. Rick, sharing Daryl's suspicions, warned her that this was a bad idea but she didn't listen.

So when The Wolves came back, just like The Governor, Rick and the prison group were prepared whereas the native Alexandrians were not. The Wolves were looking to eliminate the people they deemed "unworthy" of this new world. Daryl saw red when he remembered the woman tied to the tree and left to starve to death or be helplessly torn to pieces by walkers. The rest of that day had been a blur of bullets and bolts flying and blood splattering. They took out The Wolves but some of them penetrated the gates and killed seven Alexandria natives who had been behind the wall from the beginning and had no idea how to defend themselves. The subsequent days were filled with terror and more bullets in order to take out the walkers that had been attracted by the noise of the fight. Deanna's lapse in judgment and Rick's preparedness meant the community had been willing to switch leaders. Deanna stayed on as an advisor and they formed a kind of council like at the prison, but it was clear that Rick had the final word on things now. Such as instituting defense lessons, creating a permanent position in the sniper tower, regular guard duties at positions along the wall and regular checks of the surrounding woods.

Time elapsed slowly without Beth. Each minute ticked by slow enough to feel a lifetime worth of sorrow.

Daryl remained in action at all times, trying to stay distracted and busy—going on recruiting missions, supply runs, hunting trips multiple times a week and taking on wall duty whenever he was in town. He still didn't think of Alexandria as "home" like most of his family. It wasn't permanent; nothing in this world was anymore. Eventually the walls would fall and they would move on again. What was the point in getting attached? He had done that once before, gotten attached to Beth, and she was ripped away from him.

He was afraid that if he stopped moving, the dark cloud of loneliness would catch up to him. Daryl remembered that there were five stages of grief. The elementary school counselor told him that when his mother died. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. But this, like most psychology mumbo jumbo, was a bunch of bullshit. Grief came back in unexpected waves. Gripping him every time he had to go into the Alexandria library where the piano was, or when he saw someone else trying to calm an inconsolable Judith, or at night while he slipped between dreaming and consciousness.

This was the worst. Not only because of the nightmares; the ones where he watched helpless as Beth was kidnapped, or when she was shot, or ones where she replaced the girl tied to the tree dying of starvation. And not just because of the sweet dreams; the ones where he watched Beth smiling up at him after killing her first rabbit, or the dreams he would never admit to anyone where they lived in a normal world where they ate dinner with their kids. It wasn't just the dreams but the emptiness of the bed and the silence in the room. While they had been alone for weeks after the fall of the prison, Daryl and Beth had gotten used to each other's presence. Her slow, peaceful breathing of sleep comforted him like nothing ever had before, as if just knowing she was near stilled his anxieties. There had also been one night that had been so cold that she snuggled right up against him in order to draw on his body heat. But it had been her who had radiated warmth though his entire body, like his heart was pumping molten gold. One morning, he had woken up and found that his head had been pillowed on Beth's legs. She was on watch and must have come over to him while he slept. That had been the most well rested night of sleep he had gotten since the dead started roaming the Earth. Waking up with her hand laying softly on his shoulder and seeing her face lit up by the morning sun had been breathtaking. Somehow those nights were permanently stamped in his brain and he still found that occasionally he would subconsciously reach for her in his sleep before waking up and remembering that she would never be next to him again.

/

Time continued to pass, the only evidence of anything changing was the continued growth of Judith: her first steps, first words, the little drawings Rick hung up throughout the house, her ability to tell "Uncle Daryl" stories about what happened while he was gone on a recruiting trip.

About a year after Beth's death, Maggie came to him one night while he was carving new bolts in his room. He had a dream about Beth the night before and he had woken up screaming—his housemates knew Daryl well enough that they just ignored these nights and he was grateful for that, he didn't want people trying to comfort him.

Maggie knocked lightly on his slightly ajar door and he raised his eyebrows at acknowledgement and in a silent invitation for her to come in. He sat in a chair by the window that looked out over the street. Maggie always looked so clean and put together these days. She had a neat little clip in her hair, a clean white blouse with flowers on it and she walked around the house barefoot. All of these things contrasted so completely with the Maggie he used to know. Daryl remembered the girl that had helped the men clear the prison; dirt and blood all over her, jeans tattered, and a wild look in her eyes. The fact that she was barefoot—not ready to run or flee from danger at a moment's notice—was the greatest difference between that old Maggie and the one that was an Alexandria resident.

She sat with one leg tucked under herself on the edge of his bed. Maggie didn't say anything for a few minutes, allowing him to adjust to her presence.

"I still miss her too," she began looking down at the hardwood floor between them. She didn't need to say who 'she' was, and didn't need to ask him if he missed her. Everyone could see that Daryl wasn't the same after Beth's death. "Can't believe that it is summer again… means it's been a year since we left Atlanta."

Daryl remained silent, not knowing where Maggie was going with this conversation.

"Her birthday was July 7th, I think it's comin' up soon. She'd have been 20 this year, it's crazy to think about my baby sister not bein' a teenager," she smiled a wide grin then. "Although, she was probably the most well behaved teenager in history. Don't even think she ever even skipped a class in high school."

The corner of his lips lifted slightly at this. He could imagine Beth sitting in the front row of class, eagerly taking notes while a teacher lectured. It was easy to picture because he had spent so much time in the very back of classes, watching others and listening to the teacher instead of burying his nose in his own notebook.

"I know that's hers," Maggie nodded her head towards the knife in his hand that he was using to whittle the bolts. It was Beth's knife that Carol had given him after she died. "Carol gave me somethin' of Beth's too."

She pulled out a little green book that had been tucked in the back of her jeans. Daryl instantly recognized it and his eyebrows shot up in surprise. It was the journal that Beth was always writing in. She had been writing in it the night that he came to tell her Zach died, she used blank pages for kindling after the fall of the prison and she had been writing a thank you note to the funeral home owners the night she was taken.

_How the hell is that here?_ He thought incredulously.

He sputtered incoherently, "Wha—Is that…? How…?"

"Don't know how it's made it all the way here. She must've had it on her when she ran from the prison and then it must have been in her pocket when those assholes kidnapped her. Carol said that Beth gave it to her to stash in her pack when they were getting ready to leave the hospital," Maggie answered his fragmented questions. "Daddy would've said it was some kinda miracle really that somethin' like this stayed with us for this long."

She finally glanced up at Daryl then, her green eyes sharp and bearing into his soul. Maggie was clearly looking for something in him. Although he couldn't tell what it was, she seemed satisfied after a moment and the corners of her lips turned up again.

"I was curious. About what happened when y'all left the prison… what it was that changed you so much. So I read it." Daryl narrowed his eyes at her in disapproval and Maggie had the grace to look ashamed. "I know, I know. I am a terrible person." She rolled her eyes at his snort of agreement. "If it makes ya feel any better when I read it I realized what a terrible sister I had been to her since this all started."

Daryl thought about this. He remembered how she had completely written Beth off as a lost cause after the fall of the prison; Daryl heard about the notes written in walker blood along the railroad tracks and her willingness to go alone to find Glenn without a thought for her sister, and he remembered how even after he told her that Beth was alive she still left for DC. Daryl had been mad at Maggie for a long time for her actions, but staying angry with her didn't bring Beth back. Plus, it was clear that Maggie placed enough blame on herself—she was weighed down with guilt, same as Daryl. She didn't need anyone else to add to her burden.

"She knew that ya loved her, Maggie. And she missed ya… told me as much," uncharacteristically consoling as he remembering Beth talking about her family on the porch of the moonshine shack.

"Thanks for sayin' that," she wiped a few small, shimmering tears that rolled down her cheeks.

She pulled herself together and nodded at Daryl. "Anyways, I thought you should have this. You… you're family, Daryl. And I know that you… um… that she was important to you," she stood up and handed him the green leather book. He held it as softly as he would a fragile baby bird.

Maggie was standing over him now and he looked at her hesitantly.

"Ya sure 'bout that?" he asked.

"Yeah, Daryl. It's what she would've wanted… I know that for a fact." Maggie gave him a huge smile and patted him on the shoulder lightly for a second, knowing his aversion to touching, before leaving the room.

Daryl put the journal in a drawer next to his bed, feeling like a kid caught with his hand in the candy jar—guilty for even considering reading it. He was honored that Maggie gave it to him and there were days where his curiosity burned to know what Beth said to make Maggie think it was what Beth would have wanted. Occasionally, he pulled it out and would stare at the little green binding, letting it comfort him knowing that it held some of her most intimate thoughts. However, he never made a decision to read it or not. He couldn't decide if it was better to know what Beth felt, if it would crush him more to discover she hadn't felt the same way… or if it would be worse to know she had felt the same and neither of them had done anything about it. Daryl couldn't decide which was worse so the diary sat in his drawer, collecting dust.

/

**A/N: THANKS FOR READING! Beth's diary will come into play later on in the story ;) Chapter 11 is going to be LONG and there will be another time jump—we get to see a lot of Beth developing into the strong woman we saw through Daryl's eyes in chapter 1. I will post again in a few days so make sure to ****follow this story**** so you don't miss the update! **

**The much-awaited Bethyl reunion is slated for chapter 12 or 13 so it's coming soon lovelies. ;) **

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	11. Lucky

**A/N: YAY! Update number 2 this week! **

**Thank you for your continued support by following/ favoriting/ reviewing/ reading.** Especially to those who reviewed: Heidi191976, SarahCullen4, alliesmiley2, Emberka-2012, NicoleTheresa1, Tania Ibarbia, .94, SixJay, moriahhh, DarylDixon'sLover and guests!

Companion song: "My House"- Kacey Musgraves

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

Enjoy! And please review before you leave!

/

**Chapter 11: Lucky**

Months passed easily with Morgan by her side. They had learned how to interact harmoniously, when to talk, when not to talk and perhaps most importantly, how to communicate without talking. He was a gentle soul but it was clear that he had a dark past. Beth knew that he had lost a son and a wife after the turn, but he didn't tell her the details and she didn't ask. Morgan was a man who learned from the past and then let it go instead of dwelling on it. It actually soothed Beth in a way, his tendency to focus on the present and the future. Neither of their pasts mattered and it wasn't a huge point of discussion between them, so she did not stress about being unable to remember hers.

He was tracking a group that was supposed to be going to Washington D.C., which he explained had been the capital of their country before the turn. Morgan taught her a lot, about the current world and, if she asked, about the world before. She was grateful for his patience and willingness to teach her things. He planned to drop her off with her friends in Richmond and then proceed to DC.

But neither place held anything for them.

Thanks to the use of several maps they found in gas stations, they were able to find the neighborhood in Richmond that Kyle said her friend Noah was going to. The outside walls had been smashed and the houses already cleared of everything except dusty clothes and rotting corpses. She felt disappointment at finding the place empty, but she couldn't be too upset about not finding people she didn't even remember. Since she had no other leads on her own family, she continued with Morgan to the capital.

That city had been a terrible maze of huge, white marble buildings that stood unscathed surrounded by chaos and destruction. Morgan had reasoned that the sturdy marble buildings used to hold historical artifacts. Now, every time they knocked on the doors the only greeting was snarling from decaying walkers. There were some underground tunnel systems that Morgan knew about, explaining that his brother had worked in the government and he "didn't exactly follow the non-disclosure agreements." They checked these but only found empty cavernous passageways. Morgan briefly considered setting up a permanent camp for them here but decided against it for numerous reasons: he was slightly claustrophobic and didn't want to permanently live underground like rats, he also didn't like the lack of visibility and lastly the maze of tunnels was too complex and too massive for the two of them to protect. There was some evidence of camps that had been set up within the city after the turn, but nothing lasted. After spending several weeks combing every inch of the city in blazing summer heat, they found nothing of the group Morgan was searching for.

In the end, they were both left disappointed and without families.

/

The time continued to pass as they bounced from place to place, staying in some places for only a few hours and others for a few weeks. Her hope was dwindling, and she suspected that Morgan's was too.

One morning as fall began to make the air crisper, she woke up earlier than usual because of the cold chill and found him crying on the front steps of the house they were in. She considered just pretending that she hadn't seen him, he obviously wanted to hide this moment of weakness from her. Instead, she quietly walked out onto the porch and wrapped him in a hug. She wasn't even going to ask what Morgan was crying about, she just wanted him to know that she was there, that they were in this together.

"Rick was my last hope. When I was at my lowest, I'd completely lost my mind, he found me and pulled me back outta that stupor. Shoulda gone with him that day! But I was too damn stupid… too busy living in the past and couldn't bring myself ta leave the place where I lost Duane," his eyes flashed with self-loathing at this.

She didn't know what to say, so she remained silent.

"I dunno what to do now, Beth. Tracked him across the country, just a step behind him for so long. Now, I'm not sure if I've just been following a ghost. If I made it all up," his voice drifted off but Beth could tell he wasn't finished. So she waited patiently next to him, huddled in her jacket on the porch, watching the sunrise.

"There's a story, real famous before the turn, called 'Inferno' written by a man named Dante hundreds of years ago. The story is about a man who is on a tour of the nine levels of hell—it's all about poetic justice and gettin' what's comin' to ya. And he has this spiritual, ghostly guide, Virgil, who patiently teaches him about the hell that they're passing through," his eyes were far away, but suddenly the darkness melted from them as he looked over at Beth. "I used to think it was all a metaphor but some days, I'm scared that its nonfiction and I'm livin' it. Wonder if you're my supernatural guide through hell on earth. I've seen how you're not afraid of this world—you're not scared of the walkers or of the idea that we might be the last living souls on the planet—don't see how that's even possible! Makes me think you are my guiding angel. Then… other days, I'm afraid this is just me losin' my damn marbles again. Wish we could find Rick and he could pull me back to sanity…"

These ramblings on the porch didn't frighten her exactly, but it did make her nervous. Morgan had lived a full life before the turn—he had explained a bit about what it was like back then; having lots of people around, electricity and all the other 'normal' things. But what Beth thought was the most significant thing missing from his life before was his family. Just because he lost his son, didn't mean he wasn't a father anymore. Only now he was a father without a son to care for. Beth never asked for Morgan's help with anything or allowed herself to rely on him because she knew how easy it was for people to get ripped away from you in this world. Kyle had literally been ripped from her grasp by the hands of death.

But maybe, she had been wrong. Maybe Morgan needed to feel needed. He needed to have a purpose in order to keep going.

_To keep living_, she corrected herself.

She had been keeping him at a distance for months to protect both of them from getting hurt by the other's inevitable death… but she realized now how wrong she had been.

Pushing him away made them weaker.

It made them less human and more like the walkers that stumbled aimlessly around just going through the motions to survive.

So she vowed then and there to let Morgan into her family that she didn't even fully know. She needed to help guide him out of the darkness he had fallen into and she knew exactly how to do it. He was a father and he needed a fatherly task.

"I'd really like to read that Inferno book," she said in as light of a tone as she could muster considering the desolate nature of Morgan's thoughts. "Do ya think you could teach me to read?" she asked as she brightly over at him.

The shadows lifted from his face at this question and lines around his mouth carved into his skin when he smiled back at her.

"I'd be honored to, lil' Lady."

Everything changed from that day on.

Morgan obviously loved being able to teach Beth things. So he taught her to read—first by reading books to her and eventually helping her to read them on her own. They gathered books from every house they scavenged, seeking books like they sought food or medical supplies. However, unlike most things, books were easy to find. Beth grabbed all she could; soaking up all the knowledge that she felt had been stripped away from her when her memory disappeared.

Eventually, they found a working car and Morgan also taught her how to drive. It was exhilarating to move so quickly, to zoom across the road at a pace that would have been unthinkable on foot.

Morgan's eyes became distant during her first driving lesson and Beth gently laid her hand over his, not paying too much attention to the road since it was a completely empty stretch of highway.

"Never got ta teach Duane how to drive. It's kinda a right-of-passage, a dad teachin' his kid ta drive..."

"I'm sorry Morgan," she murmured softly.

There is no real way to comfort a parent who lost a child. Parents were never meant to outlive their children, it wasn't the natural order of the things.

There were no words that made it all right.

"I'm happy I got ta teach you though…" he smiled.

"Me too! I wonder if that kinda makes ya my dad," she peeked over at him out of the corner of her eye as she said this.

His smiled broadened, the white of his teeth contrasting with his dark skin "Guess it kinda does …"

/

They used the car to drive to the coast, hoping that the water would provide some protection on one side at least. Many of the houses on the coast were large and insulated against the noise and the cold, which made it a perfect place for them to stay for the winter. So they set up a semi-permanent camp at one of the medium size houses towards the top of a hill. Morgan set up booby traps for both humans and walkers and Beth regularly went in the surrounding forest to hunt. She had gotten good with the bow, easily taking down animals with a swift shot to the eye, same as the walkers. But as winter progressed and snow fell nightly, it became harder to find prey and they became nervous about leaving tracks in the white powder. The only plus side to the winter was that it seemed to slow down the walkers, the ice and snow made them clumsier, more likely lose their footing and fall.

One bitingly cold day, Morgan and Beth were trudging through white powder that reached up to Beth's thigh. Live prey had been scarce and they needed to search the houses in the next neighborhood to find food. After a few hours of searching, they had a full pack of canned food. But there was one more house Beth wanted to do… something about the house seemed to call out to her. Morgan strode up the front porch steps and pounded on the door while Beth stood in front of the house, surveying the street with her bow at the ready and watching Morgan's back—their normal protocol.

There was movement under the porch.

Beth whipped her arrow towards the spot where she saw movement. Morgan noticed her quick change in demeanor and he froze, waiting for her signal. She crept forward, weapon still poised as she crouched down into the snow. In the tiny space covered by the wooden planks that stretched around the house she saw a little, furry puppy.

Her heart melted at the sight of the tiny creature curled up in a ball. She motioned Morgan over so he could watch her back while she shimmied under the porch to get the puppy. Beth unzipped her jacket and tucked the cold puppy against her chest to keep him warm.

"Where do you think he came from?" she wondered aloud as she stared at the little nose now poking out of her jacket.

"I dunno Beth… but we can't keep him. We barely have enough to feed ourselves," he hesitated, clearly torn between wanting to help and not wanting to get attached to another, fragile creature in such a cruel world.

Beth found the puppy's tracks and they followed them back through the snow to find a macabre scene at the edge of the forest. The snow was stained red. Three walkers were chewing on something furry that Beth did not want to inspect. She shot all three of them in the head and Morgan was chivalrous enough to retrieve her arrows for her.

"We've gotta keep him, he's just a puppy and he doesn't stand a chance without us," she pleaded but Morgan still looked worried. If she raised the puppy, he was worried that Beth would be heartbroken when it died.

"He lost his family too. He's one of us Morgan. All life is precious." She smiled up at him, using his own words against him and he caved. Morgan nodded at her as his face softened in a smile looking at the little brown and black fur ball snuggled against Beth.

Beth had slept with the puppy on her chest, it seemed to calm him down and it kept the both of them warm. Morgan determined that the pup was likely a mix of German Shepard and Husky. He described those breeds as: loyal, smart, strong, and hard working.

"And this lil' guy happens to also be pretty damn lucky to have been found by you," he said the next day. Her eyes lit up at Morgan's words.

"That's perfect! We'll call 'im Lucky," she stated with finality.

/

They left the coast a few months later when the snow melted. Without the ice slowing them down, the constant loud, crashing waves actually attracted the brainless monsters so there was an endless stream of walkers that ambled around the neighborhood.

So they were on the move again. This time, both Beth and Morgan got to teach the puppy various tricks. Although, he didn't need training for everything. Lucky never barked, it seemed to be on pure instinct that he knew to be as quiet as possible, and he was able to feed himself sometimes. Beth had seen him snatch more birds out of the air in midflight. Lucky was growing up faster than a weed in an untended garden.

/

Quickly, all three of them had become irrevocably attached.

Over a year had passed since Morgan first found Beth in the forest, she only knew this because the heat of summer returned. Some days, Beth became depressed over the fact that none of her memories had returned. Glimpses still came to her via familiar voices in her mind, moments of déjà vu, or the dreams of ghosts that she could hardly remember in the morning. Lucky and Morgan always managed to pull her out of her funk by reminding her that she was fortunate for what she had now.

There was a creeping sensation of waiting for the other shoe to fall. It had been so long since anything bad happened that Beth seemed to be counting down the days until there was another accident.

She was right.

In mid summer, water became a limited resource again and the little family was constantly going on runs to find drinkable water. They were staying in a large cabin a little ways up a mountain range that Morgan called "The Appalachians." Most of the streams they had come across had run dry but there was a meager river still flowing less than a mile from their place. It was very secluded out here so they decided to stay for a while.

"I'll check the traps, hunt and fill the water bottles at the stream. Be back before sunset."

"Silent, secure and side-by-side," he stated and patted her shoulder. She nodded with a smile before walking out the door with her bow in her hand. They always said this before they separated from one another. It was the "Three S" rules they lived by: move silently, always stay safe and never leave the other behind.

Beth enjoyed living in the woods, it made hunting easier and it meant better sight lines. Lucky liked it too. He had grown to be over 60 pounds with tons of dark fur and bright blue eyes and he bounded happily through the trees while sniffing the trails of prey on the ground. She didn't worry about him because the dog was an excellent tracker and he also knew how to stay well away from walkers—he could smell them before they could smell him so he was an outstanding companion in this world.

Beth shot several squirrels, one bird and caught a rabbit in one of the snares she had set up the day before. She always set up the traps far away from their house in case the trapped prey attracted walkers or people saw the man-made wire loops. The sun was already beginning its quick descent when she picked up on some unusual tracks. She had never seen them before and followed the imprints for a while before remembering the animal they belonged to.

A bear.

Morgan had found an amazing book in a library a few months ago that had the footprints of hundreds of different animals. Beth was curious to see a bear in person, but the logical side of her reminded her that they could be dangerous, although she doubted bears were more dangerous than walkers. Beth, drenched in sweat from hunting all day in the summer's heat, looked over at the sun's position. It was probably only 2 hours until sunset so she needed to get to the stream and get back to the cabin before Morgan worried about her.

As the blonde worked her way back towards the direction of the stream, she realized just how far she had been tracking that bear. She had gone much further southeast than ever before and it took longer than she wanted to get back to the stream near their cabin. The sky was already turning orange when she reached it, bending over to splash herself with the cool, clear water.

All of a sudden she saw a bush rustle across the bank.

Her muscles tensed and her hands flew towards her bow next to her.

But it was just Lucky that came leaping out of the shrub, splashing through the water and licking her in the face. She set up the water bottles to fill upstream as Lucky lapped water and cooled himself by laying his belly directly in the water. After a few minutes, Lucky took off into the forest again to chase a rabbit that skirted by further downstream.

It was definitely past the time that Beth told Morgan she would be back. He was probably pacing around the cabin, frantic. She hated to worry him and she would undoubtedly get a lecture about safety when she got back.

Just as she zipped up her pack containing several full water bottles and her kills from the day, she heard a crunch of leaves behind her. The noise of the water splashing over the rocks had muffled the sound and now whatever was back there was close, very close. She considered scrambling up a tree but she knew she wouldn't make it and the bank of the stream was too exposed.

There was nowhere to hide. So she would have to fight. Two men came into view from the west, illuminated from behind by the last hints of the sun below the horizon. The blonde stood her ground, weapon already poised at the strangers before they realized she was there.

"Oh shit!" exclaimed the man on the right, stunned when he caught sight of her. He had a tattoo of some type of robot on his neck, and red hair that stuck out in every direction. His hand twitched for his gun in the holster but as his eyes surveyed the small blonde, he visibly relaxed.

_Good. He's not very smart._ She thought instantly, seeing how he was underestimating her already.

"Came for water and we found a damn angel, Jerry. It's like losing a quarter and finding a $20," said the second man to his companion. This man had to be over a foot taller than Beth and he had sandy brown hair tucked under a cap. He was smarter, Beth noted as she saw how his hand stayed firmly planted on the handle of the Colt tucked into her belt.

Beth hadn't said anything. Her head was completely clear and heart rate was even while she considered her options. She wanted to wait and see what they would do next. They hadn't done anything to show if they were dangerous or innocuous yet.

The taller man, seeing that she hadn't loosened her grip on her bow, gave a small shrug. And walked over towards the stream, still giving her a wide berth. He knelt over, cupped his hands in the cool water, drinking several handfuls and splashing some on his face before standing up and facing her again.

"Sorry, haven't found water in two days. Couldn't resist it anymore," he sighed contentedly. "We're being rude, forgot about manners about the same time that dead people starting munching on the living. I'm Michael, that's Jerry," he nodded in the direction of the heavier-set red head.

Michael leaned easily against a tree and he let out a quiet chuckle.

"You're about the quietest lady I've ever met, most women won't stop jabbering." Jerry guffawed at Michael's joke.

"If you want to be left alone we'll just fill our bottles and go."

Michael had no accent, just like Kyle and Dr. Edwards, and she wondered where he was from. It was strange for her to hear a voice without an accent since she had only heard Morgan and her own for such a long time.

No alarm bells were going off in her head, she wasn't scared of these men so she decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. She released the tension on the bowstring and lowered her weapon.

"I'm Beth. Y'all have a camp set up nearby?" she questioned. They didn't have large packs on their backs, only weapons and water bottles, so she assumed that they had set their stuff down at a camp before they came to the stream.

"Sure do. Another twelve men up at the top of the ridge waiting for the water, we drew the short straws," the red head answered. "What's your set up like? You could come back with us, I'm sure the guys would be happy to accommodate one more."

Michael shot a glare over at Jerry at this. He had given up too much information, their camp's location and the number in their group, and this girl had only told them their name. And suddenly, Beth's guard was back up. A total of 14 people, all men, and just miles away from their cabin… she didn't like it. However, she didn't want them to know she was onto them so she maintained her casual demeanor as she tried to come up with a plan. If she kept her cool, she might be able to walk away unscathed.

"That'd be very kind of y'all, been on my own for a while so it'd be nice ta getta real night's sleep again…" she smiled gratefully. "Left the rest of my stuff up a tree a few miles back, should get that before I turn in, just in case we gotta run in mornin'."

She figured it was safer to lie and tell them that she was alone, better than having them try to hunt down Morgan. It was dark out now, the stars beginning to pepper the dark sky and she knew he must be frantic by now, she said she would be back over an hour ago. If she could just get away from these two she could run back to the cabin and Morgan and her could disappear into the night. Beth put as much confidence in her steps as she backed away from the pair, trying not to appear like a mouse being pushed into a corner by a snake.

Michael, the sharper of the two, has shoved his cap in the back of his belt and was now staring at her with a keen spark in his green eyes.

"We'll escort you Goldilocks. Wouldn't be very chivalrous of us to let a young woman traipse through the woods alone at night." She didn't like hearing him use a nickname for her, like they were friends. Michael shoved off the tree he'd been propped against and started closing the gap between them as if to walk with her. Jerry was still filling up bottles in the river and seemed completely unconcerned about the prospect of her leaving.

"That really ain't necessary. Like I said, I've been on my own for a while in these woods. I know them real well so I'll be fine," her voice sounded false. Michael, now towering over her, was mirroring her steps as she continued away from them. Her heart was pounding in her chest, adrenaline already pumping through her veins as she prepared to run as soon as she got out of their sight line.

"Besides I'm sure you're tired from trekkin' up the mountain all day! You deserve some time to rest and fill up your bottles." this seemed to appease them both. Her telling them that they deserved relaxation. "Meet you back here in a bit."

His eyes flicked from her face to something beyond her head for only a fraction of a second. She knew it couldn't be a walker behind her since she hadn't heard any footsteps or growling. It must be someone else from her group, someone trying to stay quiet.

_Shit, now I'm outnumbered and surrounded. _

"All right then, sweetheart," she hated this nickname even more and the dark glint in Michael's eyes contradicted the warm smile on his lips.

In her peripheral vision, she saw Jerry's head and eyes flick to something behind her back too and a smug smile tugged at his lips.

She whistled loudly. The noise would certainly attract any walkers nearby, but she would deal with them when they arrived. It was more important that Lucky heard her, as she knew he would. Just as the tune left her lips, she heard a twig snap behind her and felt a sickening impact with the side of her head.

And then, all she saw was black as her eyes fluttered closed.

/

**A/N: **runs away and hides after another cliffhanger****

**Next chapter: Shit goes down and we finally fully understand the extent of Beth's brain injury!**

**Following chapter: Beth and Daryl meet!**

**If I get to 110 reviews this week I will update twice again so PLEASE review/ follow/favorite before you leave! **


	12. Fear

**A/N: Hey lovelies. I have been at a family reunion so I'm sorry that this chapter is a little late. Thank you for your continued support by following/ favoriting/ reviewing/ reading! **

Companion song: "Rivers and Roads" by The head and the heart

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

Enjoy! And please review before you leave!

/

**Chapter 12: Fear**

When she came to, there was a ringing in her ears and a horrible throbbing in her temple. She could hear male voices and the fall of heavy footsteps thumping into the earth. Beth stayed absolutely motionless, not wanting to alert them to the fact that she was awake.

Her weapons were tossed on the ground near Jerry's feet, several yards away from her. Pressure on her wrists told her that they had bound her hands together. Though, to her advantage, at least they were tied in front of her.

_My hands are still useable at least. It'll be more difficult, but doable_, she thought optimistically.

She opened her eyes an infinitesimal amount, peeking through her eyelashes. She was also relieved to discover that there were still only three men and they were still by the stream. At least they hadn't dragged her back to their camp yet. Michael had said there were fourteen men and not knowing where she was in the dark? That would've made her chances of escape almost unthinkable.

"Was wondering what the hell was taking you two dumbasses so long with the water," said the new man with his back to her. She couldn't see his face but she could tell he was bald and almost as tall as Michael.

"Guess we can forgive you since you found a nice piece of ass to share. I get first dibs on her though, since I'm the one that actually caught her," his voice dripped with greed and disgust filtered over her.

_A plan, gotta come up with a plan…_

Her thoughts were desperate but her mind felt clear. The easiest thing of course would be to slip away unseen but that would mean leaving her weapons behind, which she didn't want to do. The next best thing was to escape while they were preoccupied with something else but she would need a distraction, which she didn't have.

"Oh hell no! She's mine. I'm the one who distracted her!" Michael's voice was getting louder, it was sloppy of him to be so noisy in the woods.

The bald man looked as if he was about to protest but Michael interrupted.

"I'll tell you what, I'll give you the first look at those perfect tits but I get the first fuck," the brunette stated wickedly.

Michael marched over towards where Beth lay and reached down to unbutton her blouse. He flung open the front of her shirt, exposing her to all three men in the clearing. The cold air hitting her uncovered skin caused goose bumps to extend across her body. Her eyes were closed, still feigning sleep, which prevented her from having to see the looks on their disgusting faces. Just when she thought it couldn't get any worse, she felt his hands on her.

"See this?" he asked the men as he squeezed her breast so hard she almost cried out. Beth fought every instinct that told her to fight, thrash and hit his man. The blonde stayed deathly still, knowing that opening her eyes now, in this vulnerable position without weapons and an impossibly tall man hovering over her, would surrender the only advantage she had left: the element of surprise.

"It's mine." His voice was guttural, clearly aroused, but also menacing as he referred to her like an object to own. "You guys can have her when I'm done… once I've completely ruined her. But until then back the fuck off," the threat held weight, like a wolf snarling as it prepared to fight over a fresh kill.

The guilt and disgust she felt threated to overwhelm her. Beth felt slimy for letting this man touch her and doing nothing to stop it. When he went to put his hands on her a second time, she poised to fight.

Better to go down fighting for her life than lying here doing nothing.

But then, impossibly, a perfect distraction came bursting through the trees and sunk its teeth right into Michael's arm.

/

As the sky matured from blue to orange, Morgan was pacing around the cabin. Beth said she would be back before sunset. Well here it was: sunset. And she hadn't returned. He hated letting her go out hunting on her own, but he knew she wasn't a baby and he couldn't coddle her. Plus, they really did need the meat.

She was never late and he had a terrible nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach like a creature was burrowing into his intestines.

He tossed his pack on his back, he wanted to have it in case a herd cut him off from returning to the cabin or if Beth needed medical supplies when he found her, and gathered all his weapons. He wrote a note about where he went and set a meeting place and he left it with all of Beth's things in the cabin just in case she got back while he was out looking for her. He was already out the door before the sun had fully sunk below the horizon.

After travelling through the woods for a while, Lucky came jogging up to him with his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth.

"Happy to see ya, bud," he said as he scratched Lucky's ear. The pup had grown so big that Morgan didn't even have to bend to reach him anymore.

"Now where did you leave our girl?" Lucky turned his head to one side, ears perked up as he stared at Morgan.

"Where's Beth?" the man asked again.

At the name, Lucky perked up and started to head back into the woods where he came from. The dog paused momentarily, looking back at Morgan as if checking to see that the man was following him, before continuing to trot through the trees. Morgan smiled to himself. Once again pleased that Beth had convinced him to keep Lucky all those months ago. Trusting the mutt's sense of smell over his own tracking skills, he allowed the dog to guide him and realized that he was taking him towards the stream at the bottom of the valley. The stress started to melt from his body, she must've just been filling up their bottles and lost track of time.

But then, he heard a distinct, three note whistle—his and Beth's normal signal for danger. They had taught it to Lucky too and Morgan saw the hackles along his back stand up before he bolted in the direction of Beth's whistle.

By the time he caught up to Lucky, he saw that the dog was in the middle of biting a stranger's arm. He glanced around the clearing quickly and saw three men, all of whom were clearly stunned by the dog and oblivious to the black man hiding in the shadow of the trees. The mop of scattered blonde hair showed that Beth was in a heap on the ground a few yards to the left of them. His stomach dropped and he desperately hoped she wasn't dead.

When he noticed her tied hands and unbuttoned shirt, he flew into a rage. That was his daughter! With his baton gripped firmly in his hand he flew out from the forest and skillfully took the other two men on. They had guns holstered on their hips but Morgan noticed that they didn't reach for them. Instead they grabbed their knives and tried to fight him back. The third was too preoccupied with the dog for now.

Battling two men that were at least 10 years younger than him began to take its toll. Morgan had gotten more than a few good shots in though, the man with red hair had blood spouting from a broken nose and Morgan guessed the other bald one had a broken arm because he had heard a snap after a particularly nasty fall. But Morgan's energy was draining fast and he begun taking more hits than he was giving. The third man had thrown Lucky off of him and was bleeding heavily out of the arm Lucky had bitten. It was time to end this before he had all three of them on him, so he pulled the loaded revolver out of his belt. Before the men had a chance to react he shot the redhead, who was stopped short in the middle of his lunge towards Morgan with the knife. He swiveled on the spot and shot the man with bald man in the chest. The element of surprise was lost though because now the man with shaggy brown hair was able to rugby tackle him to the ground. The man's hands punched him one… two… three times before closing around his throat. The gun had flown from Morgan's hands when the man tackled him and the stranger's knees were pressing his arms into the ground making it impossible to take a swing at the man strangling the life out of him. The height, weight and age difference between the two men left Morgan at a huge disadvantage. He was going die and leave the innocent blonde he considered a daughter with this savage. He fought, with everything he had but despite Morgan's attempts to buck the stranger off of him, black spots started popping up in his vision. He knew it was all over.

Blood sputtered from the chest of the man on top of him and the grip on his neck released.

Morgan pushed the brunette off of him and saw the knife protruding from his back. Looking up, he saw Beth with her hands still tied in front of her. Her blonde hair was disheveled and there was a fresh cut and bruise on her head but she looked okay.

"Morgan! Are you okay?" she helped him up and looked briefly over his wounds as he nodded.

"I'm fine. Are you all right?" he said as he gasped for breath like a fish.

"I'm good," she smiled at him.

"Sorry it took me so long. I tried to get a gun but all of them were empty, I guess that's why they didn't just shoot ya right when they saw ya," she began buttoning up her top with a look of guilt feathering her features. Morgan's heart broke at this.

_Does she feel guilty for their disgusting actions?_

Lucky's attention turned to a space in the forest—listening to and sniffing something that the humans couldn't sense yet.

"Must be walkers attracted by the gunshots," Beth hissed.

Walkers crashed through the trees at them. Morgan was drained from his fights with the three men and his brush with death, but luckily Beth took on the bulk of the crowd of walkers. When he had taken down the three surrounding him, he turned to help Beth and he could hardly believe what he saw. Lucky was running in small circles distracting two that were attempting to chase him down. But the petite blonde had a pile of dead bodies lying in a ring around her. She had taken out at least six including ones that had begun feeding on the fallen bodies of her attackers. He watched as she kicked out the knees of the last one and stabbed it in the back of the head as it toppled over. Then they each took down one of the monsters trailing after Lucky.

It was only then that Morgan realized that her hands were still tied.

Her wrists were bloodied—probably from having to contort her hands in order to grip her knife. The pile of walkers was twice as impressive now. Morgan moved towards her and carefully cut the bindings. Beth winced but quickly moved on, gathering all their belongings and any useful items from their three attackers. As much as Morgan hated it, he knew it had to be done, S he stuck his knife in all three of their heads, ending the possibility that they would come back as walkers and further torment Beth.

Then the little family of three took off back towards the cabin.

"In the water! It'll slow us down now but those guys were with a bigger group and it'll be harder to track us this way," she explained as they sprinted with their feet splashing through the stream.

After running back to the cabin to grab Beth's things and then walking for the rest of the night, mostly along paved roads to avoid leaving tracks, they finally stopped in a neighborhood after the sun came up.

"If they manage to catch up with us, we'll see 'em coming in the light." Morgan said.

They each cleaned up their fresh wounds. Morgan's face, neck, legs and arms were all heavily bruised and he guessed that he had a few broken ribs. Beth had a nasty welt on her right temple, but no concussion, at least not that Morgan could tell. The worst of her physical injuries were actually her wrists where the rope had carved deep, bloody grooves all the way around them. There would definitely be scars there to join the older one on her left arm. He had never asked her about it but he could guess from the placement and the straightness of the line that it had been self-inflicted. Morgan knew that the worst part of this whole ordeal would be the mental devastation and of course she would have visible scars to always remind her of the horrors.

He wanted to ask her what happened out there, but he also didn't want to push her to talk. Plus, he wasn't sure if he could handle the answer.

The man stared at her, with soft, brown eyes, seeing her stare down at the old, white scar on her wrist with concern and he wondered how in the world he would help her heal from this.

/

Once they were cleaned up she ordered him to rest. He had taken on three men and had quite a beating to prove it. Plus, she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep yet.

Finally, when night began to fall, Morgan woke up and went on watch. Insisting that she needed to sleep at least for a few hours since she had been awake for over 36.

That night she was haunted by the eyes of the two men she had killed since she had woken up in that firetruck. Neither of the men frightened her, in real life or in her dreams, but she wore their deaths like the scars that permanently tarnished her skin. The old man with a white beard from her previous dreams was there, looking at her with sad but understanding eyes. There were other sets of eyes—green, gray, brown—that flew by too quickly to fully register. The only thing that stuck with her in the morning was a set of intense, deep-set blue eyes. There was a storm brewing inside those blue orbs, dark but with the promise of bringing life and safety. She loved the rain and somehow the eyes reminded her of it. They seemed to stare straight into her soul and the powerful gaze caused her breath to quicken even in her sleep. She couldn't see the face attached to the eyes but they still inexplicably comforted her.

The next day, she explained everything that happened before Morgan saved her from the men. Morgan seemed thoughtful, and concern crossed his features when she told him that she hadn't been afraid of the men and that was why she had decided to lower her weapon in the first place.

"Next time Beth, don't lower your weapon. Whatever they say, whatever they do, don't lower it… at least until we can decide together." She looked hurt at this request.

"You don't think I can do it on my own?" she squawked.

"No, that ain't it. I just think that two sets of eyes are better than one. Please, just promise me," he begged but the little blonde was still skeptical. She just didn't understand. "You're all I've got. And whether you like it or not young lady, I love ya as much as if you were my own daughter...I just… I can't lose you too Beth," his voice broke at the end, thinking of Duane and then thinking of how scared he was when he saw Beth tied up in the dirt.

"I love you too, old man" she joked lightly as she wrapped him in a hug "and I promise, next time I won't let my guard down."

This promise that she just made to her _dad_, unlike the pact she had tried to make with her _brother_ Kyle, was one that she knew she would keep. She had let Kyle down when she allowed him to be taken by the walkers but she would learn from her mistake and she wouldn't let Morgan down.

/

More months passed and they never stayed anywhere longer than a month.

Houses, museums, warehouses, libraries, offices, clothing stores, bars, schools. They had stayed in every type of building imaginable. They had also slept in the woods more nights than she could count, one person awake while the other slept restlessly, surrounded by makeshift booby traps while Lucky slept with one eye open and both ears up like little satellites. Morgan had even suggested they try staying in a prison when they passed one in Pennsylvania. Beth's heart had clenched painfully when he brought it up.

"Rick said once that his family had a prison. Said it was safe. Walls that used to keep people in ended up keeping the walkers out," he seemed to think about this and then shook his head, "guess it wasn't such a good idea in the end though. When I finally went to the prison he told me about it was overrun and had holes blasted in it by a tank."

Actual tears rolled down Beth's cheeks at Morgan's words, though she couldn't explain why.

Morgan looked over and saw her crying so he softly patted her on her back as she stared through the gates at the brick walls of the prison.

"That's alright, it was just an idea. 'Sides, I doubt we could clear it with just the two of us. Unless you think we could get Lucky to hold a knife," he said trying to lighten the mood before turning away from the fences.

Their biggest score ever, came when they stayed in a large hospital in Maryland. It was a huge city but Morgan had said they should try it out.

"Big cities were the worst place to be at the beginning of the turn. Too many people all living on top of each other meant the virus spread quickly and then the streets were just filled with the dead," he shuttered, clearly reliving a memory from a time that Beth couldn't recall.

"But now it's been so long since there was live people in the cities that most of the walkers have moved out, following the noise from storms or herds or animals, and now they're wandering 'round the country side. It's probably safer in cities now than out in the open. Funny how things change," his eyes were far away and Beth knew he was not just referring to the migration patterns of walkers.

They had to fight through the hospital, which housed numerous walkers. But they were all very old and decayed. Many of them couldn't even get up from where they had fallen so they looked more like "rotters" than "walkers." Beth was willing to bet they had been trapped in the hospital since the very beginning, which meant they had gone over 4 years without any food.

It gave Beth hope.

If the walkers stopped getting food, eventually they would all decay into dust and the world would once again belong to the living. Although, she guessed that most of these walkers were probably ill or disabled before the turn.

Once the hospital was completely clear of walkers, the pair found more medication and supplies than anywhere else before. But their most valuable find was books. She shoved several basic medical texts in her bag, but more importantly, in the neurosurgical ward of the hospital Beth found a large black textbook with a picture of a brain on the front. Intrigued, she took that one too. When she read it, it answered questions about her brain injury than she hadn't even thought to ask. The path of the bullet and things Dr. Edwards had said years ago came tumbling into the forefront of her mind again. The amygdala. The temporal lobe. She remembered the doctor mentioning them and now looking at the book while fingering the scars that showed the path of the bullet, it was clear that the doctor had been right. They controlled declarative memory, emotions, language, and decision-making. She poured over the textbook, day after day, not understanding half of what she was reading and regularly passing the book off to Morgan for his insight.

Together they used the book to make a few guesses about her brain injury: her episodic memory that was affected, it may or may not ever return, other effects could manifest themselves at anytime, and she could no longer process fear.

After knowing her for over a year, Morgan was relieved at having an explanation for her constant show of bravery and tendency for reckless decisions—the numerous times she had jumped into hoards of walkers to save his life, her insistence that she could go hunting alone. But he was afraid for her now more than ever.

Soon it came time to leave the hospital, which was fine because even though the hospital had been useful, it gave her the creeps. There was a gnawing in the pit of her stomach that made her eager to leave the stark white hallways. But Beth kept the books with her, carrying them in her pack even though they weighed her down substantially. They needed to get out of city in order to find animals to hunt. Similar to the walkers, the cities couldn't adequately accommodate living people anymore. Both the living and dead were drawn out of the cities by their shared need for food.

The pair found a functioning car in the hospital's parking garage. Beth knew that if the battery was working, it meant that another survivor had abandoned the car not too long ago. She said a silent thank you and a prayer for the person who had left the car behind, before opening the back door for Lucky and then hoping into the passenger seat herself. Beth and Morgan both laughed eagerly for a long time at the sight of Lucky chopping at the wind with his head out the window as the little Honda flew down the highway.

From then on Morgan focused on teaching her fear. How to be afraid, when to be afraid and what the normal reactions were when you were afraid of something.

It was harder than learning how to read.

The logical side of Beth knew that he was right. She remembered how she let her guard down in the forest and she wondered how fear would have changed that. Would she have frozen in panic or would she have shot them immediately instead of dropping her defenses and getting attacked?

"Fear is an important tool." He would repeat this phrase over and over whenever she was frustrated with their lessons. "It tells you when something's wrong, it tells you when to stay and fight or when to turn and run. Since the emotion isn't there we have gotta program your brain to figure it out without the physiological cues."

The fear lessons continued as they moved from place to place, their paths altering in order to avoid huge, roaming herds or groups of people they came across. Beth felt like a boat without sails or an oar, just being pushed in various directions by the currents without any control over her own destiny.

Wandering aimlessly was the worst part, she wished they had a goal or a destination, but after DC was a bust they just drifted throughout the states trying to find a safe place to settle down. Beth didn't mind the walking, didn't mind killing walkers or sleeping in four-hour shifts. She didn't remember a world with electricity, daily warm showers or cell phones, which only meant she didn't ever miss those luxuries. The more she read of books and magazines, the more she learned about the old world and the more she wished she could remember. Was easier without the memories, without the pain or the longing for modern conveniences? Probably. But was it better? Her heart ached and she couldn't even remember why, she grieved for losses without even being able to attach a face to the person she mourned.

/

Everyday was too similar: the search for water and food, the hunger pangs on the days they didn't hunt, the walkers they either killed or evaded, the eternal conflict of hope and trepidation when finding other people.

They came across several groups, most of them they watched secretly and ended up deciding they were dangerous before moving on. Occasionally there were close escapes from other bad groups. Some people they talked to or even helped, but after being with just Morgan for so long, they had their own rhythm and a deep trust in one another. Without fear leading her out of dangerous situations, it was impossible for Beth to decide who was trustworthy so she depended on Lucky and Morgan's instincts. Lucky didn't like anyone, living or undead, and Morgan was a very skeptical man so they never stayed with anyone for more than a few hours, swapping stories or occasionally trading goods.

She was unfulfilled by a lifetime of scavenging scraps from the dead and drifting aimlessly between abandoned buildings.

She had finally put her foot down and made Morgan set up a more permanent spot. They had been staying in an airport in Virgnia for about two months. Beth liked the airport, the hugeness of it and the high ceilings surrounded by windows. It allowed her the best of both worlds—the protection from walkers that the inside provided and the open, unconfined space that the outside provided. Morgan reluctantly agreed. It was exposed without fences but it had big windows and a large open space surrounding it which provided an excellent visual field, they set up numerous traps for both walkers and people, they had a contingency plan, a meeting place and two different escape routes out of the airport. But even though they were finally had some semblance of a "home" everyday was still about surviving… not living.

She was on watch, still as a statue because she her body was so accustomed to being motionless from two years of being on constant alert. Lucky was lying in the sun next to her, exhausted from chasing around a tennis ball she had been throwing for him this morning. Morgan was in the dark storeroom that they slept in during the day because he had gone on a run yesterday to a pet store nearby. No one had raided any pet stores so there was always plenty of dog food and toys for Lucky. It made her heart swell to see how excited the dog got every time they brought him a new toy. "Like a kid on Christmas," Morgan had said. Though this meant little to Beth since she had no memories of what Christmas was, only the stories Morgan told her, pictures she saw on walls of abandoned houses and what she read in the books.

_There has to be more to this life,_ she thought to herself as she stared out the large airport windows.

That was when she saw the man step out of the edge of the forest surrounding her temporary home. She didn't move, knowing that she was exposed in the look out seat and any movement she made would likely attract his eye to the window. He had long, shaggy brown hair that hung in his eyes and a crossbow held poised to shoot. What caught Beth's attention was his gait. From her position in the window she watched him walk with agility, only his lower body moved and his upper body held steady so as to not jostle the aim of the crossbow.

Definitely the walk of a hunter.

When she saw him slip around the side of the building, she knew he was looking for a way inside—probably hoping to loot the airport of useful items packed in the abandoned luggage. No one else emerged from the woods and she hadn't seen him make any signals towards anyone so she guessed that he was alone but she couldn't be sure. She woke up Morgan from his nap and told him to quickly get all their belongings together in case the hunter turned out to be dangerous and then she moved silently through the airport in order to meet their mysterious visitor.

/

**A/N: Thanks for reading and please review! **

**Our mysterious hunter and the fearless blonde meet next chapter, we will see it from Beth's POV this time! (: **


	13. The Meeting

**A/N: Hey Bethylers! Here is the chapter you have been waiting for. Sorry this is so late I have been so worried that it would disappoint y'all so this chapter was reallyyyy hard to write. :/ I am super sick so please make me feel better by leaving a review before you go! **

Companion song: "Girl is on my mind" by The Black Keys

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

/

**Chapter 13: The Meeting**

"Stay, boy" she whispered to Lucky. He was tensed and poised to run which told her his sensitive ears had picked up on the stranger walking around in the airport even though Beth couldn't hear him.

Lucky was her secret weapon and she didn't want the hunter to shoot her dog on sight.

She came around the corner, the gun she rarely used gripped firmly, to find the man already stepping out of the little souvenir shop. He looked like he was headed back out to the front doors and for a second she thought about hiding back around the corner and just letting him leave, but then she realized that he might be going to signal to companions that had waited in the woods. To her shock, he had somehow sensed her even though he hadn't turned around. She watched as he lifted his crossbow over his shoulder and raised his hands into the universal surrender position, still facing away from her.

"Keep your hands up! Don't even think about reaching for that knife on your hip," she tried to make her voice as low and threatening as possible. She was in control, she had the advantage in this situation and she wanted it to stay that way. From the rippling muscles of his arms and shoulders she knew that this man would be able to overpower her if it came down to a fight. Beth didn't feel any fear, as she knew she wouldn't, but she vividly remembered the two other times men had attacked her…

She wouldn't let that happen again.

She wouldn't mess up this time.

"Turn around, slowly. Tell me what you're doin' here and how many people you have waitin' in the woods for you," her voice echoed through the large space in the airport.

The stranger turned slowly to face her. He kept his hands raised, but she wouldn't be fooled into a false sense of security this time. She had promised Morgan that she would never lower her weapon again.

"My name is Daryl Dix—," the man started to say in a gruff voice.

But then he froze; his voice suddenly cut off as if he choked on the words as they formed in his throat. One of the first things she noticed was that he was clean—it was clear that he had a permanent camp and that it must be near water where he could wash his clothes and himself. This was decidedly not good for her, because if there was a permanent place set up nearby that probably meant there were more people there too.

The stranger's eyes travelled over her. Though not in a way she had ever seen before. It wasn't in the slimy way that Michael's eyes moved over her body or with the menacing look the unnamed man had leered at her over two years ago in the pharmacy.

He looked… awed. It was the best word she could come up with. Complete shock registered on his face.

_Why is he looking at me like that? _she wondered before trying to come up with a logical explanation._ Maybe he just hasn't seen a woman in a long time…_

She kept her gun trained on him. It didn't matter why he was looking at her like that. She had made the mistake of lowering her weapon in the woods with Michael and Jerry and her willingness to trust almost cost her and Morgan their lives. Beth had to be more vigilant this time.

But Beth didn't want to hurt this man. He wasn't threatening her and something inside her screamed to trust him.

She felt an unusual pull towards him, like their bodies were magnets. It was those blue eyes… they reminded her of something…

Beth was torn. Her instinct was telling her to lower her weapon and go to him. But the logical side of her told her that she should be afraid of a stranger. In the middle of her internal indecision, the man found his voice again.

"Beth?" it was only a whisper, but her name coming out of this stranger's mouth cut through the air that seemed to have grown thicker between the two of them. His brow was crinkled in confusion.

_He knows my name. So he must know me, but I don't remember him. It must have been before I got shot. _

The stranger was staring at her so intensely, like he thought she might be a ghost that would turn into vapor at any moment. Then she recognized his eyes. They were the eyes from her dreams: intense, deep, penetrating into her soul, kind but cryptic, mysterious yet comforting. Now she was the one who was confused.

Were those dreams actually memories of this man now standing in front of her?

"Beth!" he repeated her name again, with certainty this time.

That's when he started running towards her.

_What the hell is he doing? He's going to attack me!_

It seemed to be the only reasonable explanation for why he was frantically running at her. What if he knew her because he was the one who shot her the first time?

He was closing the gap between them, sprinting across the floor towards her like he was running for a life raft on a sinking ship. Her heart clenched, and it called out to him, instinct was screaming at her to drop the gun. But part of her was telling her to pull the trigger—who knows what this man is capable of? He was certainly strong enough to attack her and Morgan like the other men had. She had promised Morgan that she would fight the next time someone came after her, that she wouldn't drop her weapon.

But instinct overtook logic and she didn't pull the trigger. Instead, she found that her hand holding the gun was lowering without conscious thought. How did this stranger have such a strong effect on her?

"Who the hell are you? Morgan! Lucky! Help!" She couldn't make this decision on her own. Her broken brain was surely playing tricks on her.

She was still torn. To trust or not to trust?

Then he reached as if to grab onto her. She couldn't shoot him. But she also couldn't allow another stranger to tackle her to the ground so she wound up and punched him with all the power she could muster. He stumbled backwards and actually sprawled out on the checker-patterned floor just as Morgan and Lucky came crashing around the corner. Lucky positioned himself directly in front of Beth, standing between her and the stranger. Morgan had raised his gun but Beth's was only held loosely at her side.

"What's goin' on Beth? You! Back up! Slide that crossbow across the floor towards us" Morgan shouted, keeping the gun trained on the man in the sleeveless gray shirt. The stranger obeyed, backing up to a safer distance but still openly gaping at Beth. His deep-set eyes had narrowed into slits now, so thin that she could not see any of the familiar color in his irises. Hesitantly, he took the crossbow off his back and slid it across the tile with a deep sigh.

"He knew my name. He recognized me," she kept her voice low so the stranger wouldn't overhear "I… I didn't know what to do"

"Beth, honey, if he knows your name that must mean he knew you before ya got shot. He could be a part of your family!" he looked excited at this prospect.

"Or he could have been the one that shot me," she murmured even lower, glancing over at where the stranger stood awkwardly. His eye, where Beth hit him, was already swelling.

"Maybe… but we shouldn't jump to any conclusions. Let's give 'im a chance to talk," he said skeptically.

"You talk to him, please. I don't think I can…" Those eyes were still staring at her, the blue eyes that she had only ever seen in her dreams—the ones that had comforted her for two years.

His gaze was disorienting, it made her unsure if she was dreaming or awake.

"What's your name?" Morgan asked as he approached the stranger.

"Daryl," the man grunted.

He kept his gaze on Beth and opened his mouth as if to ask a question but he snapped it shut again.

"How do you know her name?" Morgan nodded his head in Beth's direction.

The hunter shuffled around and started biting on his thumb.

"I… We… we knew each other before… before she was…" his words faded off, unable to finish his sentence. But he didn't need to, she knew he meant before she was shot, before she died. Dr. Edwards had told her all about how her blood pressure and pulse would have been so slow that even with if they had a stethoscope they might not have been able to hear it. The doctor has suggested that this was why her family had left her behind in the truck, because to an untrained eye—she was dead.

The dark haired stranger shook his head as if to clear it before starting over again. "Met on her farm after the turn, our group stuck together for 'bout two years."

He sent a pleading look at Morgan, as if begging him to change the subject. Beth could sympathize. If he was telling the truth and he knew her for two years and then believed her dead for two more, it would be pretty shocking to find her in the flesh. Morgan obliged his silent plea and moved on in his interrogation.

"Are you alone?" Morgan continued the interrogation.

"Right now, yes. But I live in a town 'bout 40 miles away… we've got 'bout 100 people there." Daryl kept stealing glances at Beth, like if he spent too long looking away from her she might vanish into thin air.

Morgan whistled, and glanced over at Beth with his eyebrows raised.

"100 people? How's that possible?"

"We've got walls, built by some know-it-all architect" he started shifting around again. "There's pictures in my backpack, y'all can take a look."

He pulled his pack off his shoulders and tossed it so it landed at Beth's feet. Lucky sniffed it suspiciously but seemed satisfied that it was not a bomb. Beth smiled at Lucky's attempt to protect her from even something as simple as a backpack while she knelt down and yanked it open. She shuffled through the photos and saw big, beautiful houses and tons of smiling faces. Most of the people in the pictures didn't even wear weapons, just everyday life without the fear of needing to defend themselves. Beth had never known a life like that. These seemed like the pictures she found on the walls of the homes they scavenged, not like anything she had ever actually seen in this world. She passed them to Morgan who shuffled through a few when he sucked in a breath of shock.

"Beth! That's him, that's Rick and his boy!" he gasped, turning the picture towards her.

Daryl's head snapped over to Morgan.

"How da'ya know them?" the dark haired stranger asked skeptically.

This day kept getting weirder and weirder.

Morgan lowered his gun. And it suddenly clicked in Beth's head that this man had the same southern accent as Morgan and herself.

"Met him right at the beginning of all this, taught him 'bout walkers… then I met his boy later on. Rick saved my life. Tracked him all the way to DC because I found this." Morgan reached into his own pack, which he had readied for escape when Beth first woke him, and pulled out the crinkled and ripped map that him and Beth had followed across the country. He handed it to Daryl, who smiled tightly at the inscription at the bottom.

"Abe's got quite a way with words, huh?" he breathed under his breath. "You must be Morgan, met Rick right after his coma?"

Morgan smiled and tucked his gun into the waistband of his pants.

It seems they had another ally.

/

Seeing her, standing in front of him was surreal.

He didn't want to take his eyes off of her, afraid she might disappear again, but he also didn't want to freak her out by staring. Every time he looked up at Beth his breath caught in his chest.

_Gonna hyperventilate over a damn girl, brother? Yer weaker than I thought._ His brother's voice mocked him in his head, but Daryl didn't care.

It was Beth.

Nothing else mattered except convincing her to come back to Alexandria with him. This would be the best damn recruiting work he ever did. He left her in that truck two years ago, which had clearly been a mistake. He wouldn't leave her behind again. So he was hugely relieved when Morgan agreed to come to Alexandria. Beth seemed reluctant and pulled Morgan aside to talk to him. They were almost out of earshot of Daryl but his sensitive ears from ears of training and hunting which allowed him to hear bits of their conversation.

"— a trap? Can't get lured in again, I almost lost you last time." Beth gripped Morgan's forearm.

"Some risks are worth taking Beth," the black man replied with soft eyes.

"So, this isn't a situation where we should be afraid?"

This seemed like a strange question for Beth to ask.

The older man chuckled at her, "I've got a good feelin' about this one."

She nodded thoughtfully at this, seeming to trust his instinct. "I'm goin' wherever you're goin' old man."

Then Morgan said in a louder voice towards Daryl, "Pick up your stuff and come help us finish grabbin' our bags."

The big dog that Beth had called Lucky, stood with both eyes trained unwaveringly on Daryl. Daryl could tell that it was a mutt, some sort of German Shepard and Husky mix he based on the fur and the size. The dog certainly looked like it would pack a mean bite.

"Come on Luck." Beth called the dog over to her so Daryl could move.

Daryl watched in awe as he saw how much stuff was packed into the back room and hidden in various places throughout the airport, lots of meds and food which didn't even include the stuff they stashed in their emergency packs. He helped them pack things up and offered to carry bags for them.

"Did y'all need anything from the airport? Already got all the meds and most of the useful things out of the luggage, but I figured ya came in here to search the bags for somethin'." Beth glanced nervously across the room at him as she hoisted her own bag over her shoulder and picked up her bow off the ground. Her voice, musical even in regular speech, rolled into his body and he wished she would keep talking. He never thought he'd hear that voice again, but now that he was hearing it, he never wanted it to stop.

"Uh, yeah," he stuttered, trying to form a coherent thought as he stared at the woman who had walked only in his dreams for the last two years. "I was hopin' to get some meds and clothes."

"Why don't you two go look for the clothes he needs and I'll get our bag outside and the C4," Morgan piped up.

Beth nodded and looked seriously at Morgan while she stated, "Three S." Daryl couldn't make any sense out of this but Morgan nodded back at her and turned to go out a back door of the airport.

Then, they were alone.

Instantly Daryl was flooded with the memories of the last time they were alone. It was in the funeral home. Beth obviously didn't remember him, which meant she obviously didn't remember their time at the funeral home. He was smart enough to deduce that the bullet in her brain had affected her brain, which he hadn't even thought about in his initial shock of seeing her. But now his brain was inundated with questions: Was it just him that she had forgotten? Did she remember anything? Would she ever remember? How was she alive? How had he not noticed she was alive when he held her in the fire truck all that time ago?

True to form however, he didn't ask anything out loud. Words had never been his forte. So he settled for the subtle glances he kept stealing over at her. Beth still seemed skeptical of him, walking far away from him and keeping Lucky close to her.

"What're we lookin' for?" she asked curtly as they arrived at the suitcases scattered around the floor.

"Anything a pregnant lady and a newborn would need and some clothes for a 3 year old. Judy's growin' like a weed."

"You've got a pregnant woman in your group?" She smiled, a huge, hopeful smile that crinkled up the sides of her eyes. He lost his breath for a moment and forgot for a second what they were talking about.

_Maggie._ What the hell was Maggie gonna do when she saw Beth? Did Beth remember her sister?

"Yeah," he said simply. It was definitely not his place to tell Beth that her sister was pregnant.

He couldn't help but notice that she hadn't reacted to the news about Judith and the questions finally reached a boiling point.

"Your memory… do you remember anything?" the words tumbled out of his mouth before he even realized he was saying it. It felt like his damn brain had turned to mush around her.

Her eyes glazed over and she seemed to stare off into space, lost in her own world. When she glanced back at him, he couldn't understand the look in her light blue eyes. Sadness? Irritation? Longing? Amused? Pained?

"Not a thing," she replied simply.

And those three words fractured his heart.

Memories of her flashed through his mind—her rocking Judith to sleep, her taking care of him on the farm, her singing in the prison yard, watching her and Hershel read through the bible on quiet mornings, the way the moon lit up her face on the porch as they drank moonshine and he bared his soul to her. She didn't remember any of that and it was his fault.

Beth seemed to read the guilt in his expression.

"It ain't that bad… Can't miss what ya don't remember." Her voice was sincere and he realized that she meant it. She didn't miss any of their family.

They had been tormented by her absence every day for more than two years but she didn't even know they existed. Daryl felt like he had been rammed through the gut with a rusty kitchen knife. However, simultaneously he was pleased. It meant Beth hadn't suffered, hadn't been heart broken for two years, hadn't been in a state of constant worry about what happened to her family. She didn't know of their losses so she couldn't feel the grief. It was good; Beth didn't deserve to feel that pain. This knowledge seemed to marginally soothe the new stabbing pain.

After several minutes in silence as they searched the bags, Beth looked over at him. The look on her face was still one of uncertainty. Beth had never looked at him like that before, he remembered the time when they were alone after the prison fell and she had always looked at him with complete faith.

"I'm sorry," she said, breaking the heavy silence that had engulfed them. There were several beats of silence that followed this statement, Daryl now uncertain too. "About your eye, I mean," she clarified.

He smiled to himself; it was just like Beth to be concerned about others.

He shrugged and muttered, " 'S all right. Probably deserved it."

Daryl definitely deserved much worse than a punch in the face. He was the reason the Governor had destroyed the prison, the reason she had been kidnapped, the reason she had gotten shot, and he had been the one to leave her behind in Georgia.

Then, he was hit with a realization.

This was his chance to start over, to give Beth a second chance—an opportunity for her to have a better life. He had wedged his way into her life before and look at all the good it did for her. Daryl being in her life got her a bullet in the brain. He had always known that he was bad for her, that she was too good for him. And he had been right. Getting muddled up with a Dixon only dragged her down very nearly to her death.

So in that moment, as he searched for baby clothes for her sister, he swore to himself that he would stay far away from her this time around.

He would still protect her, would give his own life to keep her from death a second time… but he would do it from afar. He would do it without allowing her to get close to him again. His dad had been right all those years ago, Daryl was no good, and now he would try his damnedest to keep her safe from himself.

Daryl glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. The sun was coming in from the windows and white light surrounded her. Blonde wisps had tugged out of her braid and stood out around her face. The combination of the hair and light made it look like she had a halo around her. Daryl felt his hand floating up automatically to reach out and brush the hair away but he froze. He knew he could never allow himself to touch her. They had only shared a handful of hugs before and it had been enough for Daryl to fall in love with her. If he wanted her to be safe, there could never be any contact between them. So he turned his eyes back to the luggage he was

Morgan reentered the airport with a dirty backpack. It looked like he must've dug it out of the ground. Beth and Daryl stuffed their own bags with the items they'd found, he tried hard not to think of what had happened to the children whose clothes they were taking.

After they had gotten everything useful out of the luggage and Beth and Morgan had gathered all of their own bags, the little group headed out to meet Aaron back at the car. As they all walked in silence he noticed that they were well acquainted with the forest. Morgan gripped his machete tightly in his hand and his footsteps were quiet. Lucky's ears were raised and his nose sniffed the air continuously. Daryl felt confident that the dog was keeping watch for walkers. Beth was the most impressive though. Morgan's footsteps were quiet but Beth's were absolutely silent. He had to glance over his shoulder more than once to be sure she was still behind him. The hunger remembered when the two of them were alone after the prison fell—the way she tromped clumsily through the leaves and couldn't even pull the weight on his crossbow. Now she glided effortlessly like a cat through the trees.

When they got there, Aaron was already waiting for him, empty handed it seemed. But he did seem shocked to see Daryl with full bags, two people and a dog in tow.

He gave a wide smile and said, "Go off for some clothes and you come back with a small gang. Knew there was a reason I picked you for a partner."

The two newcomers introduced themselves to Aaron and his eyebrows rose so high when he heard Beth's name that they nearly disappeared into his hairline.

"Beth? The Beth? From Georgia?" he glanced over at Daryl who merely nodded.

He really didn't want Aaron to make a big deal about this in front of her. Aaron knew bits and pieces about his history with Beth. The two men had spent a lot of time on the road over the last few years and once Daryl had finally warmed up to him, he naturally talked about Beth since she was always on his mind. Somehow, it was easier to talk to Aaron about Beth than to talk to the group from the prison that had actually known her… plus Aaron was the least judgmental person he had ever met. Years of being judged for his sexual orientation meant Aaron was more understanding than most people. Aaron was a smart man, and Daryl guessed a long time ago that he had figured out that Daryl had feelings for Beth, without Daryl ever explicitly telling him. It hadn't bothered Daryl that Aaron knew this, but he hoped that he would keep his mouth shut now that Beth was here.

And Aaron didn't disappoint.

"Wow. Maggie is certainly going to be pleased to see you. We'll have to make sure she's sitting before you walk through the door," Aaron quipped lightly. Daryl shot him a grateful look for not saying anything about him.

Beth shot Aaron a confused look. Of course, she didn't even know who Maggie was.

_This is unbelievable. She's here, but without her memory it's like she's not really back. _

The other three and Lucky piled into the car with all the backpacks before taking off towards Alexandria. Daryl still couldn't keep his thoughts straight and he sighed with relief when he got on his motorcycle alone. The cold air blasting in his face, the solitude and the roar of his bike would drown out the confusing thoughts that churned in his head. And hopefully steady his resolve to stay away from Beth.

/

**A/N: Thanks for reading and for your patience! I hope I didn't disappoint you!**

**Next chapter we finally get to see some of our other TWD characters and some of it partially be from Rick's POV! :) **

**Please leave me a review about what you thought of the meeting. **


	14. Arrival

**A/N: Hi lovely Bethylers! How are y'all feeling now that our favorite couple is reunited?! I am SUPER excited about some things I have planned coming up now that they are back together ;) I know Daryl is pushing her away now, but that will fall apart soon. **

Extra special thanks to LadyScarlettDixon, Heidi191976, Emberka-2012, NicoleTheresa1, SarahCullen4, Tania Ibarbia, Reignashii and Guests for reviewing!

Companion song: "For Emma" by Bon Iver

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

/

**Chapter 14: Arrival**

They arrived in Alexandria under the cover of night. That was a good thing because it would allow him the chance to talk to everyone before they saw Beth. To warn them that she didn't have her memory. No one else needed to get punched when they tried to hug her.

Luckily, Holly was on watch at the gate instead of one of the prison group so she didn't immediately inundate Beth with questions.

"Normally Rick does interviews with everyone before he'll let them stay, but I think we can make an exception this time since he already knows you both. I'll take you straight to the clinic so they can check you out before you settle in. Tomorrow, someone can take you on a tour of the place," Aaron explained. Clearly Morgan and Beth had filled him in on the car ride over.

Daryl nodded at Aaron, Rick might want to interview them but he definitely wouldn't kick them out.

"Imma go find 'im. He'll wanna know right away."

Daryl was torn then. Wanting to go find Rick and explain everything to his family but also not wanting to let Beth out of his sight. The solitude of the road had not been relaxing, it had been tormenting. He kept thinking that he was dreaming, afraid when he saw the car that it would be empty. So he ended up riding directly behind the car, staring at the back of her blond head through the rear window to assure himself that he wasn't in fact losing his mind.

Aaron seemed to sense his indecision and looked Daryl right in the eye and said, "I'll stay with them." Then he turned to Morgan and Beth, "You both can stay in my house, at least for tonight, Eric and I have plenty of room and he loves dogs. Then we can figure out a more permanent place in the morning."

Daryl was infinitely grateful for Aaron in that moment. They'd been working together for two years and he had become like another brother to him. He would watch over Beth and also keep her from having to wake up in a house with their family who would surely bombard her with questions and hugs.

He walked with the group all the way to the hospital clinic and kept his eyes trained on Beth until after the door clicked closed behind her. Then he turned and jogged through the quiet streets to enter the house he shared with Rick, Carl, Judith, Michonne, Maggie and Glenn. They were all asleep, not expecting Daryl home until the next day, so he silently crept through the house. He wanted to tell Rick first, then they could figure out the best way to deal with Maggie. The hunter paused outside of Rick's door, he knew that Michonne usually stayed in Rick's room, or vice versa, and he really didn't want to walk into anything… intimate… but he also didn't want to knock and wake Judith, who had a crib in Rick's room. The needs of Lil' Asskicker trumped the possibility of any awkward moment that might ensue so Daryl pushed the door open. He found Michonne and Rick's sleeping forms intertwined under the sheets, but he let out a sigh of relief to see that they were both fully clothed. Daryl figured that Michonne could be in on the conversation as well so he tried to wake both of them up with a whispered "Pssst."

Neither of them stirred.

This spoke volumes about how complacent they'd gotten behind the walls of Alexandria. Three years ago if Daryl had made a noise like that in front of sleeping Rick and Michonne he would have a katana at his throat and a gun aimed at his head in an instant. Now, lulled into security by the walls, they just continued sleeping, blissfully unaware that Daryl was standing just a foot away.

"Hey, lovebirds. Get up, we gotta talk," he hissed louder, glancing over at Judith to ensure he hadn't woken her. The girl had grown from a baby to a toddler so quickly and she had long outgrown the crib she laid in now.

_Gonna have to get 'er a real bed. And her own room too since these two can't keep their hands off of each other._

The pair on the bed finally woke and immediately jumped into action, brandishing a knife and a gun. When the initial haze cleared from Rick's eyes, he recognized Daryl. Then shock turned to worry instantly plastered across his brother's face.

"What happened? Who's hurt?" he sputtered.

"Keep yer damn voice down. Everything's fine… but we gotta talk," the hunter replied.

Michonne and Rick shot each other a hesitant glance. And then seemed slightly embarrassed that Daryl had blatantly caught them in bed together. Apparently they didn't think anyone knew about their sneaking into each others' rooms.

"Com' on, let's go downstairs."

When the three of them stood in the living room, Daryl suddenly lost his words. He didn't know how to start. It was pointless to ask the pair to sit down, they were both like Daryl in that way, all of them wanted to be standing and ready for action as soon as they heard bad news.

"On the run... we… I found someone," he begun feebly.

Michonne looked skeptical and Daryl felt certain that the samurai was preparing for the worst.

Rick cut to the chase, "Who?"

"That guy you met at the beginning, Morgan. He tracked us from Georgia, looked for us in DC."

Rick's eyes glinted, happily at first and then he seemed to remember the second time he met Morgan. Daryl hadn't been there but Rick told him that Morgan had completely transformed; lost his mind, shot at their group and stabbed Rick in the chest. The dark looks that clouded both Michonne and Rick's faces told Daryl that they were remembering the same thing.

"He do that to your face?" Michonne's reference to his black eye caused him to scowl. If it was already that noticeable in the darkness, it was going to look like shit in the morning.

"Nah. He seems sane now… normal," he assuaged the pair, avoiding answering who actually punched him. "He's not what we need to talk 'bout anyway."

They all waited in silence as Daryl tried to force the words out of his mouth. Rick and Michonne knew that Daryl wasn't a talker so they allowed him the heavy silence as the words worked their way out of him.

"He was with Beth," he finally blurted out. They stared at him like his sanity was now under question. Seconds ticked by in skeptical silence.

"Err… what?" Rick stuttered.

"It's her Rick. She's alive. I dunno how it's possible, but she's here."

"She can't be, Daryl. We both… we saw her get shot in the head… at point blank range." Rick hesitated, knowing that the words would hurt Daryl. But he spoke soothingly, like you would speak to an animal that was backed into a corner.

"I know. But it's her," he insisted.

Rick raised his eyebrows. When Lori had died, Rick had lost his mind, yelling at hallucinations of her, disappearing for hours in the prison or running outside the fence on his own. Daryl knew that Rick thought this was Daryl hallucinating in the same way. He didn't blame his brother at all for thinking this. It had only been a few hours since he first saw her and he questioned his own sanity more than once since then.

"I know… she was dead… but she's not now," he expired. There was no way to convince Rick until he saw it with his own eyes.

Rick was stunned, probably replaying the horrible moment in the hospital hallway that had haunted Daryl's nightmares, trying to find the loophole that had allowed Beth to live. But Michonne, ever vigilant, had already spotted that something was off.

"So where is she? Why didn't she come here to see everyone?" her voice was low but perceptive. And there was more silence.

"She don't remember anythin'. Nothin'. Didn't recognize me, didn't even know who Maggie was… The bullet messed her up real bad." Daryl's heart shattered at his own words. He hadn't really believed it, thought it was all just a twisted joke, until he said it out loud. Voicing this to two of the people he trusted most in this world, made it real.

The pair could tell that Daryl was barely holding on to the edge of sanity, but they also knew he was not one who wanted comforting. In fact, it was the exact opposite. If they had tried to console him, they would have only been met with a glare and a door slammed in their faces.

"Why don't you go take a shower? Wash those fleas off of you? We can tell Maggie in the morning, I don't want to wake a pregnant woman and endure the wrath of Maggie and Glenn before we know for sure if its her," Michonne suggested, trying to lighten the mood, but Daryl didn't make a move.

"I'll go to the clinic now to see Morgan and… Beth... We'll figure everythin' else out in the mornin'," Rick confirmed in his stern, leader voice.

If both of them were on the same page, Daryl knew that it must be the right decision. He couldn't see anything objectively right now so he would trust their guidance. Daryl nodded and bound up the stairs to drop his bags and try to get some sleep after what was the most shocking day since the one where he had to leave her body in that damn fire truck on the side of the road.

/

Rick was skeptical to say the least.

People came back from the dead all the time now, but coming back to life?

Impossible.

Daryl must be hallucinating, like he had done after Lori died. It certainly took Daryl much longer to crack, but then Rick had always known that his friend and brother was probably the strongest person left in this world—which was saying something because everyone who had survived this long was strong.

He figured he would walk into the medical clinic to find a man who happened to be named Morgan and a blonde girl. Daryl didn't actually know what Morgan looked like and Beth… Beth was dead. So Daryl must have been mistaken. The odds that his first friend in the apocalypse had found him after more than four years and across five states were unthinkable.

So he refused to get his hopes up.

It was dark on the streets of Alexandria, street lights and porch lights weren't allowed this late at night so only a few small solar powered lawn lights glittered along the path. However, Rick didn't need the light to find his way through the community and soon he arrived at the medical clinic, which was actually just one of the bigger houses in the community.

Aaron was sitting with his head drooping to the side in the living room that acted as a waiting room but he perked up instantly when Rick swung the front door open.

"Long day?" Rick asked with his eyebrows raised.

He nodded and a smile broke across his face, "Worth it. Just wish I had been there to see that tiny blonde give Daryl a shiner."

This comment made Rick stop mid-stride in his walk through the living room. A tiny blonde could describe Beth, but he definitely couldn't imagine the youngest Greene girl ever getting the jump on Daryl. Beth in her little gray crocheted hat with the flower on it, too-big cowboy boots and a little braid through her pony tail. The picture in his head of her hitting Daryl was comical. This made Rick absolutely certain that the blonde they found was someone else.

"They in there?" Rick questioned, turning serious. He noticed the big dog sitting on alert outside the door and assumed it must belong to the newcomers.

"Yeah," the recruiter said as he relaxed back into the seat again.

After a soft knock on the door, Rick strode into the exam room and what he saw rendered him speechless.

It was Morgan, standing in the middle of the room looking slightly haggard in the way that clearly suggested that he hadn't had a proper shower in a long time. His old friend had a scraggily beard, slightly worn clothing and lines etched so deeply into his face that he appeared to have aged faster than a flower wilts in the Georgia sun. But it was unmistakably him. Morgan's eyes, which had possessed a fire of madness the last time he saw him, were calm and kind —albeit exhausted—just as Rick remembered when they had holed up with Duane in his family home more than four years ago.

The two men embraced in a lung-crushing hug and just as Rick was finding his voice to ask his comrade what happened, his breath left his throat with a whoosh.

The little blonde.

She came out from behind a curtain hung for patient privacy.

Her eyes were ringed in purple circles that were so dark they looked like a permanent fixture on her face. The hollows in her cheeks that used to be round told him she was much thinner, which was saying something since she had never weighed more than 120 pounds soaking wet. The eyes, unlike with Morgan, were the most confusing piece for Rick. They were the right shade of blue, but the tenderness, that used to be constant, was missing. All of these things made her look different. But the things that convinced Rick were the thin, white scars on her face and neck. The scars that Rick could clearly match to the stitches he remembered from the last time he saw her lying dead in that fire truck. He replayed the moment in the hospital when he watched her head whip back as he felt the warm blood splatter onto his face… the pool of blood that had stained the white linoleum floors. It was impossible that she was standing here.

And yet, it was definitely Beth.

Rick had never imagined seeing her again, so he never imagined what a reunion would be like. But if he had, he would have expected a tight hug or even a kiss on the cheek. He remembered after bringing Maggie home from Woodbury, Beth had kissed him on the cheek in a gesture of gratitude before going back to tending to his infant daughter. If he had been expecting a hug, he was certainly surprised when she stared blankly at him.

He had always been a talker, but now he was speechless.

"Beth, this is Rick," Morgan covered the silence in a cautious tone. "Rick, it looks like ya' already know Beth. She won't remember ya' but I have told her plenty of stories and we've been tryin' to track ya' down for ages."

"Hi, Rick. Nice to finally meet ya'… or meet ya' again I guess," she said with a slight nod in his direction, the right corner of her mouth turned up into a tiny smile. Her voice was one thing that certainly had not changed; it was still airy and musical, like if a bird could talk.

Rick chuckled, unsure what the standard procedure was in this situation. "You can't even imagine how good it is to see you… both of you."

The doctor, a tall woman with dark hair named Jean Ortiz, came out from behind the curtain too. Jean had been a doctor in the military before the turn, which meant she was able to both fight and heal. She was an invaluable member of their group—another recruit of Daryl and Aaron's. She also never sugar coated news, a quality that Rick appreciated.

She tipped her head towards the other door; Rick and Jean stepped outside alone.

"They're cleared. Both of them are in pretty good shape considering how long they've been out there. But Beth has suffered severe memory loss. All of her declarative memories: episodic, semantic, autobiographical are all lost from before the bullet wound," he didn't know exactly what these specific types of memories were but he understood the gist of it.

"Okay. So she lost her memory, we can deal with that. She'll get it all back over time right?" Rick insisted. Every movie he had ever seen with amnesia, people got their memory back in the end. She had to get it back. Whenever she saw Judith or Maggie, she would remember.

"There are possibly other symptoms too. She wasn't very open to discussing anything, understandably so since I'm still a stranger, but without a MRI or a cooperative patient it's impossible for me to even guess what the other effects are," Jean paused and lowered her voice even more and her forehead crinkled with the heaviness of having to be the bearer of bad news. "Rick… with no changes in her condition for two years… it's unlikely that she will ever remember anything from before."

These words hit Rick like a punch to the gut. He felt the weight of them, of the responsibility of holding this knowledge. It was like when Dr. Jenner had told him that everyone was infected. Important information that held dire consequences if divulged.

"Did you tell her that?" Rick asked with a tilt of his head. He knew that Maggie, Daryl, Carl, probably even Beth herself, would be hoping that the memories of their time together would return. Diminishing that hope, just like with the news from the CDC, would only hurt everyone worse.

"No. The placebo effect is strong Rick, and her believing she can get better may be her only chance," she spoke softly in order to minimize the blow. But there was no need because Rick had already surmised that much.

When he didn't respond Jean continued, "It's amazing that she made it at all, plus reuniting with your group after all this time, there is a lot to be grateful for. Give them at least a week before assigning them jobs," she commanded with finality.

Then she opened the door wider and spoke to the newcomers again in a normal speaking volume, "Eat your fill here, you both should gain at least 10 pounds. Get plenty of rest, you'll be safe here inside the walls. I'd like to see you both again in a week but you are welcome to come see me at any time." Doctor Jean left them alone then, probably going back to bed in the house next door.

The leader thought about how to proceed from here—sleep first or talk first. The decision was easy, if Beth really had been in the dark for two years she deserved to know the truth now.

"I'm happy you're both here and I will leave y'all to get to bed soon. But first, Beth, I need to tell ya' about the people here," he began.

A small nod was the only indication that she was listening to Rick. This was so unlike the old Beth that would have been smiling and chatting.

"You've got family here. You've got lottsa people who love you and who've missed you for the last two years. But more than that, you've got real blood relatives here… a sister." At this news her eyebrows rose in surprise and her mouth dropped into a little, silent 'oh'. Morgan smiled so big that it made his eyes squint.

"Better than we ever coulda' hoped for, Beth." Morgan grinned as he lightly patted her shoulder.

But she remained silent and stoic. She was so different, Rick's only rationalization was that she must be in shock so he continued delicately.

"I'm sure you can understand how rare that is in this world. And I know everyone's gonna wanna see you as soon as they find out you're back. But who you want to see and when you wanna see them… it's up you," he saw Beth ponder these words and share an inscrutable look with Morgan.

"I'd like to meet them tomorrow. Been waitin' for two years to find y'all, no good wastin' anymore time than we already have," her words were positive and she was smiling now but it was a sad smile that Rick couldn't understand.

"All right. We'll have a family dinner at my house tomorrow and y'all can come. For now, just get some rest."

/

**A/N: What did you think about Rick's POV? I know next chapter looks like it will be a family reunion but there are some important Beth/Daryl moments first ;) **

**PLEASE review/ follow/favorite. Your love makes my heart happy. **


	15. Weird

**A/N: Sorry this update has taken so long. I went to the hospital this week and also have been working 6 days a week so in all honestly… I have actually forgotten what day of the week it is! BUTTTTTT to make it up to y'all I am going to post again on Thursday/Friday. Make sure to follow this story so you don't miss the update! **

**Over 100 followers! I am so amazed and humbled. Thank you so much for your support! Special shout out to those who reviewed: **BrookePloves5H, Tania Ibarbia, Emberka-2012, Heidi191976, NicoleTheresa1, SixJay, Reignashii, DarylDixon'sLover, LadyScarlettDixon, and guests. Y'all are the best!

Companion song: "I think I'm paranoid" by Garbage

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

**Thanks for reading! Please review before you leave, reviews make my heart happy. (: **

/

**Chapter 15: Weird**

_On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. _

Light bulbs were weird.

She stood in the bathroom, the one with a warm water and flushing toilet, and flicked the light switch on and off while she marveled at the brightness inside. Morgan and her had come across plenty of batteries and they had flashlights or lamps that they used occasionally. But having a switch that controlled the light and not having to be worried the power running out, it was… well… weird.

She couldn't sleep. It was kind of Aaron and Eric to open their home to her, Morgan and Lucky but this place was too perfect, too clean, too unlike anything she could ever remember seeing in this world. Morgan hit the big, fluffy bed and fell asleep instantly. He trusted Rick completely, and if Rick said this place was safe, Morgan believed him. She could hear the snores coming from his room next door, a sure sign that her father figure was sleeping soundly because she had only heard him snore a handful of times over the last two years. Alexandria and this house were just like the world _Before_. This fact comforted Morgan, but it put her on edge. It felt as if it belonged in a book or one of the old photographs she always saw hanging on walls of the abandoned houses.

Lucky was happily curled up at the foot of the bed she wasn't using but he was still awake, staring at her like she was a loon.

"Don't gimme that look. It's strange bein' in a house like this," she complained to the dog that only perked up his ears and continued to stare.

She hadn't even showered yet because the thought of dropping her guard completely by getting naked and standing in a five-foot tile box seemed ludicrous. So here she was, still in her somewhat dirty clothes scavenged from airport luggage, pacing barefoot around her room. The only concessions she made were taking her shoes off and setting her bow down, but her knife remained in its sheath on her hip. While she was pacing around the hardwood floor, trying to dissipate her nervous energy, she thought she heard someone outside her door, just a creek of a floorboard. But Lucky hadn't moved. She was just being paranoid. Beth knew that if there were any real threats the mutt would be bristling, his heightened senses and ability to detect danger had always made him an exceptional companion in this world.

She tried to lie down and sleep, she really did give it a chance, but her eyes remained wide open. Maybe it was the claustrophobia from the walls of Alexandria or maybe it was just because she was used to being on watch at this time of night.

Beth grabbed up her weapons and slid on her boots. Lucky cocked his head to the side with perked up ears.

"Let's go check this place out, Luck."

She wasn't going to wait until tomorrow for a tour. As soon as her hand touched the doorknob, the dog bolted off the bed to follow her into the night.

/

He fidgeted. The harder he tried to sleep the more it evaded him.

Daryl had waited on the porch for Rick to come back from the medical clinic. He stood in front of Daryl with one hand on his hip and the other scratching the scruff on his chin for a long time. Rick's green eyes were erratic and filled with bewilderment. For only the second time in the four years they had known each other, it appeared that their leader was actually speechless.

Their eyes met. Daryl's questioning, waiting for Rick to confirm that it really was Beth, and Rick's confused and guilty.

"Family dinner tomorrow. They'll be there," he stated simply before walking up the steps to the house.

"You really found her." He said over his shoulder with one foot inside the threshold, before closing the front door behind him knowing that Daryl would come in when he was ready.

His pulse raced.

_So Rick saw her too._

A while later, he went upstairs, showered off and got into bed but he was wide-awake. Daryl was too overwhelmed with this information: Beth being alive, Beth living out in this shitty world for the last 2 years, Beth losing her memory, Beth punching him. The knowledge that Beth was now only a few houses away had him itching to get up and go to her.

He wanted to see her again. Being with her earlier at the airport hadn't been enough. He needed to see her, to soak up the sight of her like a plant needing to drink in sunlight. But he couldn't. He promised himself that he would leave her alone. He was dangerous, he'd gotten her kidnapped last time he tried to take care of her. After getting sick of fidgeting in his sheets for hours, he went back outside to smoke his last cigarette; giving in to one of his vices in order to suppress the urge to run up the street to Aaron's house. It wasn't working though. The burning in his lungs was just amping him up more.

_I'll just go check on her. Make sure she settled in okay. As soon as I know she's all right I will be able to sleep_, he told himself.

He knew this was a lie. He would never be able to get enough of Beth to be satisfied. However, he stubbed out his cigarette and was already walking across his front lawn without consciously deciding to do so.

Many of Alexandria's residents felt safe enough to leave their doors unlocked and Daryl had been over for enough dinners to know that Aaron and Eric were included in that group. He opened the front door to Aaron and Eric's place and was met with a dark, silent house. Daryl crept up to the second floor to the two guest rooms. Their house had the extra rooms as a safety precaution. Allowing space for newcomers or people who needed to get out of their own houses, like Jessie and her kids who stayed there a few times when Pete had been particularly violent or Jake when the rest of his family was quarantined with a fever. The snores coming from the first room told him that Morgan had easily settled in, but the second room, the one he figured must be Beth's, had quiet footsteps emitting from it.

After a moment of listening to the movements, he could tell she was pacing. The pads of her feet softly passing by the door that he stood outside of.

Apparently, Beth couldn't sleep either.

He resisted the urge to knock and decided instead to go out to the couch. He would leave first thing in the morning but for now it would make him feel better knowing he was under the same roof as her, able to protect her, able to stop her if she was trying to run away. He had seen her looking like a caged animal when she entered the walls and he knew she didn't really need his protection since she had made it on her own for two years. But even if it was illogical, he would stay anyway.

_Ya' stubborn sum'bitch_, thought the Merle in his head.

From the couch, below her room, he could still hear her tiny footsteps pacing. After a little while, they stopped. Daryl figured she had gotten into bed and this made him relax against the plush, green couch. He let his mind drift for another hour and thought that he might be able to get some sleep after all. When he heard soft clicking down the stairs he bolted upright, standing and lifting his bow from where it rested on the coffee table in one smooth motion.

Beth's large dog came trotting out of the shadows with his nails clanking on the red hardwood floor. Then Beth, with her own bow slung hastily over her shoulder, came down the staircase too. She gasped at the sight of him and automatically reached for her knife but as soon as it registered that it was Beth, he dropped his crossbow and this relaxed her a little.

Their blue eyes locked on each other in the darkness.

"Sorry, didn't mean t' scare ya'" he mumbled quietly. Not knowing what else to say or how to explain his presence on someone else's couch in the middle of the night.

She smiled. It was a knowing smile, the kind of smile that teachers used to have when they talked about how babies are dropped off by storks, the kind of smile that people had when they knew a secret.

"Don't worry, you didn't," she kept her voice low too.

He couldn't peal his eyes away from her. She was still in the same dark jeans and white tank top as earlier but she had removed the braid and piled her long, blonde hair on top of her head in a messy bun instead. Daryl knew he was staring like an idiot but he couldn't help it. After thinking someone was dead for two years, it was normal to stare, wasn't it?

As the silence in the room grew thicker, Lucky came over and sniffed at him then. Whatever he smelled seemed to appease him because the dog gave Daryl's hand a small lick. Beth's mouth dropped open at the sight of this and her eyes narrowed at him. He couldn't tell if she was confused or suspicious but her hand did leave the hilt of her knife after that.

"Psst," she hissed at the dog, which moved back over to her side instantly. "Let's go, boy," she said to the dog again, finally breaking eye contact with Daryl as they moved towards the front door.

"Where are you goin'?" The words were out of his mouth before he could think. He couldn't help it, he was worried that she was going to climb the gates and leave or maybe that this was all still a dream that he would wake from as soon as she left.

"Out," she said tersely. But then, upon seeing Daryl's brow furrow in concern, she seemed to reconsider this vague answer and elaborated further. "I'm goin' for a walk, just around town. Can't sleep up there," she explained with a small shrug.

"I'll… I can…" he stuttered. He was going to say that he could go with her. "You shouldn't go alone, ya don't know the town yet." The offer was still there, but he tried to conceal it behind this weak excuse.

The same knowing smile drifted across her face again, it was pretty clear that she thought the idea of her being in danger was ridiculous.

"I'll be fine. 'Sides, I'm not alone… I've got Luck with me," she tilted her head towards the dog that was eagerly waiting by the front door.

She reached for the front door again with her back to him. Daryl motioned automatically to come with her, despite the fact that she'd already dismissed his offer.

Beth whipped around and there was a much fiercer look on her face now.

"Hey!" she hissed, stopping Daryl in his tracks. "I don't know you. Now, I'm goin' for a walk… _alone_," she emphasized the last word. "Don't follow me."

Even though her words were harsh, they still managed to sound like a plea in Daryl's ears. Of course, she didn't remember him anymore.

_Shit, baby brother, she doesn't even know ya and ya already screwed up yer chance_, mocked the Merle in his head.

He merely nodded once to show he understood before she bolted out the door.

Daryl understood loud and clear that she had known him for a few hours and already she didn't want him around.

/

She walked the entire perimeter of the walls twice with Lucky silently trotting at her side or occasionally wandering away to sniff at something. She noted where there were newer patches of the fence, where she heard growls outside, the guard tower's blind spots, where the people on patrol walked.

Then she walked through the town, it was small but had so many things that she considered luxuries in this world. There was a chicken coop, a pigpen and a large garden. Beth's mouth watered at the thought of all that amazing, fresh food. Most of the vegetables she ate were ones that had been sitting in a can for years and plenty of them had been passed their expiration date. It had gotten better after Morgan had found the edible plant book in one of the libraries they stayed in. The book at least allowed them to confidently eat more things they found out in the forests.

However, this garden and these animals… they were something more. They were a sign of permanence. Something she thought was impossible in this world.

Her mind kept wandering back to the archer that had been sitting on the couch earlier. What was his problem? Why was he there instead of in his own house? Why did he keep staring at her? Were his hooded blue eyes really the same ones in her dreams? And why did he try to follow her?

It was obvious that he knew her before she had been shot, he had told her as much. But what did that mean? She was worried about meeting her family tomorrow and the expectations that all of these people would have. Beth couldn't remember what she was like before… but what if they wanted the old Beth back and she was too different now? The leader, Rick, had been staring at her in the medical clinic and she could feel the comparisons being made. It was like he had a mental checklist of what she used to be like and he had tried to see if the new Beth met the guidelines in his head.

The archer's gaze was slightly different though. His eyes weren't expectant; they had been hopeful. But above all they held guilt, like Lucky on the few occasions when he hadn't listened to her and had wandered off too far. It was this guilt in his eyes that confused her most… and what made her think that he had something to do with the bullet hole in her head.

Either way, it wasn't something she would figure out tonight.

After she walked around the quiet town twice, she decided it was time to go to sleep. When she entered the house, she saw the silhouette of Daryl Dixon lying on the couch. His eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling, with one hand behind his neck and boots crossed at the ankles. Lucky went over to him again and pushed his cold, wet nose against the man's cheek.

_What in the world has gotten into that pup?_ She wondered again. She'd never seen him act like that with anyone but herself. Lucky didn't even do that kind of thing with Morgan.

Daryl's hand patted the dog twice on the head while Beth moved towards the stairs silently. Lucky padded over to her but she paused with her foot on the bottom step.

"Told ya I'd be alright… you didn't have to wait up," she murmured, feeling responsible for this man's lack of sleep.

"Saw that caged-in look, thought you might take off," he shrugged, not meeting her eyes.

The ends of her lips tugged down into a frown. How could this man read her so well? It was like he knew that she'd been planning escape routes on her walk.

"Still haven't decided yet," she responded truthfully.

His blue eyes snapped up to hers, even in the darkness she could read the panic written all over his face. He was so easy for her to read too, but Beth didn't understand the why behind anything he had done so far.

The genuine concern she saw made her uneasy and she took a page from Kyle's book, using humor to ease the tension. "Can't leave without that old man snoring up there or without stealing some of the shampoo," her hand flitted up to her ratty, greasy hair.

Tension remained in his face; humor was clearly not going to appease Daryl Dixon.

But she wasn't there to calm him or quell his panic—she didn't even know this guy and he was already following her. So she turned, without saying anything else, and walked up to her bedroom where Lucky was already waiting on her bed. Though her thoughts still raced, about meeting her family tomorrow and concerns about if this place was really as it appeared, she felt peaceful enough to go to sleep now. Her mind was colored with thoughts of the man downstairs as she drifted off.

The next morning, Daryl was gone when she came downstairs. A woman named Deanna, whose late husband had built the walls, gave Morgan and Beth a tour of Alexandria. The tour was informative, but there wasn't much that she hadn't already seen the night before. Beth didn't speak the entire time, letting Morgan ask questions while she observed the people and the differences in security during the day.

She noticed that only the guards on the walls and the sniper in the tower carried guns. Only a handful of people in the town had knives, or weapons of any kind, on them. After everything she had seen, she wasn't surprised that they had been lulled into a sense of security. Since the beginning, the walls had only been breached a handful of times—each time killing only a few people. They were confident… they were complacent. Morgan and Beth had not yet been asked to hand over their weapons but she felt certain that it would only be a matter of time.

Lawns were mowed, flowers neatly planted in window boxes, windows completely intact, not an inch of dirt on anyone's clothing.

It was unnerving.

The sense that this town was another world entirely from the one she had been living in for the last two years. It was separate from the only world she really knew. Morgan was in awe.

"Looks just like the old world," he told Beth quietly as they trailed behind Deanna. "Jenny and I always wanted a place like this, nice gated community, house with a wrap-around porch. That was the dream." He chuckled to himself, "Gates are a little bigger now."

She nodded, understanding Morgan's need for the comforts of the world he remembered from before the dead started eating the living.

Beth saw the hunter again on their tour; he was sitting on the porch railing of a house speaking to a lean black woman with dreadlocks and a young Asian man. The Asian man's jaw dropped open in shock. The black woman's gaze flitted over the blonde and there was disbelief in her eyes but her face remained neutral. Then she saw Morgan, and she narrowed her eyes at him slightly. Beth looked at Morgan out of the corner of her eye and saw him cower under her gaze. He moved off the street towards the porch and the woman came down the three stairs to meet him on the lawn. Beth followed him while their tour guide stayed on the street maintaining a distance that allowed privacy.

"I wanted to apologize, about the last time I saw you. I wasn't right in the head and I regret my actions," Morgan was blunt, making no effort to sugar coat it.

"We all got a second chance when the world ended," she flashed her white teeth in a small smile that made her eyes warm. "Some people are even lucky enough to get more than one second chance." Her eyes flickered to Beth, but they were not judgmental and Beth instantly took a liking to her.

"I'm happy you're here now," the black woman finished simply and the blonde couldn't tell if she was referring to Beth or Morgan.

Morgan smiled too, knowing that the subtext of her meaning was that he had been forgiven. Beth knew the story of when they had come to the town where Morgan had lost his mind, shot at a child and stabbed Rick.

"I'm Michonne," she extended a hand towards Beth. Her skin was soft, the skin of someone who had lived safely behind walls for two years, but they were strong, the strength of someone who had not forgotten the horrors that existed outside the walls.

"Beth," the blonde replied. She wondered if she knew Michonne before she was shot. This woman had been with Rick and his son whenever they saw Morgan all those years ago, so she assumed that she had known this woman. There was an automatic sense of camaraderie between the women. Lucky let Michonne reach down and pet him behind the ear. However, no memories returned.

But there was no disappointment or shock in Michonne's face; she had clearly been warned about Beth's memory loss.

Michonne seemed to have realized that Beth had needed a minute to work through some thoughts. The silence between them wasn't uncomfortable and Beth was grateful that this woman wasn't a chatterbox like Deanna or Aaron's husband, Eric.

"We'll see you both here later for dinner," she said with sincerity.

"Looking forward to it," Morgan grinned even more broadly, happy to be accepted into the fold of Rick's group after he had messed up so badly the first time he met Michonne.

Beth merely nodded in agreement and found herself wondering just how many people were included in this 'family dinner.'

Before turning to join Deanna on the street in order to continue their tour, Beth glanced over to the porch. The younger, Asian man still looked dazed. This man obviously had known Beth—there was no other explanation to why he was looking at her like he was seeing a ghost. Daryl was still sitting on the porch banister with one arm resting on his knee. As soon as she looked up, she found that his eyes flitted downward. He wouldn't meet her gaze for some reason. Maybe it had something to do with the purple welt that spread across his eye. A small ripple of guilt racked through her but she pushed it away; she shouldn't feel sorry for defending herself.

_Yesterday he tries to hug me and follows me home, now he won't even look at me… What is this guy's problem? Who was he to me before I got shot? _

She couldn't help but wonder if this family dinner tonight would help her find answers that she had been searching for during the last two years or if it would only bring up more questions.

/

**A/N: Thank you everyone for sticking with me even though there was a gap in posts. I'll post another chapter later this week so make sure to follow the story so you don't miss the update!**

**Next chapter Beth meets everyone and we get to see life from another person's perspective. ;) **

I am looking for someone who can draw or use the computer to create art in a similar style to the art on the websites below (I don't own that art which is why I left them on the page of the original artist and did not upload them to my site). It is for a TWD project so PM me if you're interested!

106646397675095548148/MinimalistPixar?feat=embedwebsite

art/Take-Her-To-The-Moon-For-Me-544919293

**Thanks for reading and please review beautiful Bethylers! **


	16. Family and Etcetera

**A/N: Yay! Update number 2 this week! Thanks so much to all my new followers and special thanks to all the loyal followers who have stuck with this story for all 16 chapters and EXTRA thanks to those who consistently leave positive reviews. Y'all are the best. **

Companion song: "Back to the Family" by Jethro Tull

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

**Thanks for reading! Please leave a review in the little box at the bottom before you go! (: **

/

**Chapter 16: Family and Etcetera**

"You ready for this?" he asked as the stood on the wooden planks that formed the wrap-around porch.

His brown eyes searched her face and Beth knew that he would find a strange combination of apprehension and enthusiasm.

She shrugged but responded, "Been waiting for two years, but you've been waitin' even longer… it's time, whether we're ready or not."

Stepping forward, she knocked on the door. They were in their normal formation for clearing houses. Beth would knock, Morgan would stand to her left, they would listen for movement with weapons poised, and wait for walkers to rush towards the sound of their knocking. This time was different though…

Their weapons were sheathed and, for once, the door opened from the inside. It was Rick that came to the door instead of a rotting corpse. Light poured out onto the two visitors. Lights, from light bulbs, inside the house.

Absolutely none of this was normal to her.

"Come on in," Rick said as he stepped aside to allow the space for Beth and Morgan to enter the foyer. "Most everyone's in the living room waitin' for y'all. They're excited to meet you, Morgan, and to see ya again Beth."

His blue eyes looked at Beth again, expectant. It was as if Rick was waiting for Beth to say something profound or to run in there and start hugging everyone.

Morgan smiled and answered in order to take the pressure off of Beth. "Best not disappoint anyone then," and he gestured for Rick to lead the way.

/

A big, furry dog bound around the corner and into the living room. Almost the entire family was scattered through the living room and Maggie could swear that not a single one of them was breathing. Well, except for Judith who was lying on the floor, coloring. A man, several years older than Rick with some gray hairs peppering his scraggily beard, was next to emerge.

He was closely followed by a small blonde woman.

Her hair was pulled back into a braid that trailed down her back and she was thin but muscular. There were scars on her face and her hand was resting lightly on the hilt of a knife. Bags under her eyes were deep purple, the color of the sky just after dark. Her piercing blue eyes were darting around as if searching for an escape route before resting on the faces of the people in the room. It was these blue eyes, so similar to her father's, which convinced Maggie that the almost unrecognizable woman was actually her sister.

The breath she had been holding in, gushed out of her mouth with an audible whoosh. She was happy that she was sitting down because she thought if she was standing, she might have fainted from the sudden rush of oxygen. Even with the warnings from Daryl and Rick and Glenn, all of who had already seen her, she was still completely caught off guard.

"Bethy. I can't believe it," she whispered. Glenn squeezed her hand as she stood up and started across the living room.

She stopped when the dog blocked her path to Beth. He sniffed at Maggie but seemed to approve before moving to inspect the rest of the family in the living room. Maggie reached for Beth's hand and the little blonde didn't resist.

"You must be my sister," it was the same musical voice she remembered but the lack of recognition in Beth's voice broke her heart. It was clear from the vacant look in her blue eyes that Beth genuinely did not remember her own sister.

She just nodded somberly, adding, "Yeah, I'm Maggie." The small blonde's hand was rigid in her older sister's soft, warm ones but she didn't pull away which Maggie took as a good sign. After another, slightly uncomfortable, moment Maggie dropped Beth's hand. The rest of their family was still silent, not knowing what to say to the blonde stranger in front of them.

Judith's rambunctious giggles filled the room and every set of eyes shot over to where she laid on the floor. Beth's dog was rolling around, poking the toddler with his nose while she laughed and tugged on his fur. Lucky was at least twice her size but Judith wasn't afraid.

"He's fluffy. Can he stay, Daddy?" She asked with wide eyes looking up at her father. Rick stood with a hand on his hip and the other scratching his chin below a huge grin.

He knelt down to her level and grabbed her little hand, "Yeah, sweetie. They can all stay." The man turned his blue gaze up to Maggie's own little sister. The implication was clear—Morgan, Lucky and Beth were all welcome to stay in Alexandria.

Then, she saw the corners of Beth's lips twitch up. It was unusual. Not her normal smile… not even really a smile at all. Then Lucky followed the girl and licked her face. And then Beth let out a beautiful, musical laugh.

That was when Judith's eyes finally landed on Beth. The little girl smiled wide and turned her head to one side like a dog. It was obvious that Judith remembered Beth but she was still too little to recollect her fully. Which was fine, because Beth didn't remember Judith either. However, Judith still came racing towards her and wrapped her arms around Beth's legs.

"Uh… hi, lil' one," Beth said awkwardly as she patted Judy's back. Even though it was stiff, the voice was still unmistakably hers… and that must have been what Judith recognized.

"Hi mommy," the little girl replied simply, voice slightly muffled because her face was squished into the side of Beth's leg.

Beth shot a look of alarm and confusion at Rick. It was sincere and she looked down at the toddler clinging to her as if she was trying to do the math of how old she was.

Rick chuckled and Abraham let out a loud guffaw. "She's not your biological daughter… but she certainly remembers you," Rick told her. This eased her face back into the quiet mask it had been before. Judy detached herself from Beth's leg and went back to coloring on the floor and petting Lucky.

Something seemed to flip in the room after that. And it was only then that Maggie noticed that Daryl had slipped into the room. He had been on the fence about coming to the dinner and Maggie knew why—she'd seen how heartbroken he was after Beth died in Atlanta, how he'd never been the same since then, and she could guess at the reasoning. She wondered how much Daryl had seen of the scene that just happened.

People began moving and introducing themselves to Beth and Morgan, shuffling into the kitchen and dinning room to get food and sit down at the large table. It was ridiculous to have to introduce themselves to Beth when they had all lived in a tiny prison together for almost a year.

There were two empty spaces left between Rick, at the head of the table, and Maggie. It was unspoken that the chairs were meant for Beth and Morgan, but they hovered away from the rest of the family. Maggie could see silent conversation passing between the two of them, but she couldn't even guess what it was that they were saying.

This hurt.

It reminded her so much of when they were children. They used to speak in such easy shorthand, built from years of late night talks, that Hershel called it a secret code. Once they were older, they had become close enough that all they needed was one look in order to convey what they were thinking. The Greene sisters might as well have had a psychic link.

But then, Maggie went off to college and they never got that connection back. When the dead started walking and their brother became "sick", their relationship began stitching itself back up. However, she screwed that up too. Maggie was smart enough to realize that she had all but thrown Beth to the wolves since she fell in love with Glenn—at the prison, after it fell and even when Daryl went to rescue her from the hospital. She'd made so many mistakes.

She believed their bond was severed forever when Beth died. It seemed like the sisters might be getting a second chance… but were they really?

_Is she even really Beth anymore?_ Maggie wondered as she took in the sight of the blonde who didn't even recognize her own flesh and blood.

Beth had returned, not as the girl who was stolen from them in Atlanta, but as a woman, fully-grown and more dangerous than imaginable. Beth used to be naïve, shy, gentle but now she was deadly, confident, silent. The deep purple bruise on Daryl's face was concrete evidence of how much she had changed, how dangerous she was. Even her blue eyes seemed darker. They had absorbed the worst parts of this new world. They darted around rooms as if searching for escape routes instead of looking at others. The family crowded around her, which used to be comforting and loving, now made her visibly uncomfortable.

The last time Maggie had seen her alive, Beth had told her "I won't leave you." There had still been streaks on Beth's cheeks where the tears over their father's murder wiped away the dirt on her face. But the older Greene girl had pushed her away, into the bus, and told her "We've all got jobs to do" before abandoning her to find her husband. Beth had looked heartbroken and absolutely terrified. That moment had haunted her so often that it was permanently etched into the inside of her eyelids but it was almost impossible to match this memory of her sister to this woman who sat next to her at the dinner table with a scowl plastered on her face.

/

Clanking silverware mixed with the light chatter of the strangers surrounding her. There were so many people included in her "_family_" that not all of their names stuck in her head. The food was amazing though; fresh, cooked zucchini over brown rice with slow cooked venison, all spiced to perfection.

Nothing canned, nothing expired, nothing cooked over a campfire.

Beth had never had a meal like this. She scarfed down everything on her plate before most everyone else was even halfway finished. This was a world where you never knew when, or if, your next meal would come. Beth had learned when to ration and when to gorge.

When her plate was clean, Daryl wordlessly, and without many people noticing, pushed the dish with the remaining deer on it across the table towards her. She gratefully put another piece on her plate. Then he looked pointedly at Maggie next to her, down at the venison, then back at Maggie. She took another piece as well, and the Korean man she saw earlier, whose name she learned was Glenn, smiled at Daryl and said "Thanks, man."

This interaction between her bright-eyed sister and the silent hunter was curious to her. Did Daryl just take care of everyone? Or was he focusing specifically on the Greene girls? She found herself wondering yet again, who Daryl had been to her.

Beth stayed completely silent during their meal, just observing the people and waiting to see if something would trigger a memory.

Nothing did, of course.

She didn't even feel those strange sensations of déjà vu.

The young man named Carl, who Beth guessed was close in age to her, cut the baby girl's meat. They were introduced as Rick's children but she saw that everyone took care of the toddler. Glenn had made up her plate. Carol, the older woman with cropped hair, had cleaned up the mess when Judith tipped her plate over—although Lucky also helped with that. Michonne took her from the table and set her up with toys after she was finished eating. It was clear that this child was everyone's, not just Rick's.

It made her wonder how she used to fit into that puzzle. Judith had recognized her and called her "_mommy_."

_I guess it's obvious what I used to be to her. _

This was slightly unsettling, knowing that she had been so responsible for that little life. So she pushed it out of her mind. She was not a mother and in this world, she never would be.

Despite the cheerful conversation, there were anxious, concerned looks were being passed around the table when they thought Beth couldn't see. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her sister whispering to her husband Glenn. Beth knew that it must be about her and she wondered if the people around the table were comparing her to the Beth they used to know. No one explicitly asked her any questions and Beth guessed that they were under specific instructions to give her space. The tall, redheaded man whose name she already forgot, began to ask her a question at one point but Daryl shot him a look that would have made a grizzly bear quake and the redhead shut his mouth with an audible snap.

However, Morgan amicably joined the conversation; talking pleasantly about Judith, the comforts in Alexandria, vaguely mentioning some of the places they travelled and job assignments.

"How are they chosen?" Beth finally piped in on the topic of jobs.

Rick's eyebrows raised in surprise that Beth spoke for the first time since sitting at the table, but he recovered quickly.

"It depends on what the community needs and your skill set," he replied.

"What can we help with?" Morgan asked, eager to get involved, always looking for a way to serve others.

"They could use another hand over at the clinic, I was thinking you could do that Bethy," her sister blurted out, obviously excited about the idea. However, she seemed to rethink her answer before sputtering, "… used to be really great at that kinda stuff…"

Beth thought of all the wounds she had stitched up on herself, Kyle and Morgan over the years. The lack of fear meant she had no reservations about blood or death, so it had always been easy. But she wasn't excited about the prospect of being stuck in that small clinic with sick people all day, everyday.

So she just shrugged.

Daryl, sitting across the table from her, narrowed his eyes at her lack of response.

Morgan chimed in, covering for her rudeness, "Beth's too modest. She'd be great at it." He leaned into her and whispered, "Just give it a try, you really would be good."

His optimism and belief in her caused an involuntary smile to spread across her face, and she gave a microscopic nod.

"What about me?" he asked Rick.

"Haven't decided yet for you yet. Why don't you come around with me tomorrow and we'll figure something out," the leader responded with a pensive look at his old friend.

"Sounds great."

People had started getting up from the table, cleaning dishes while rambunctiously laughing about jokes that Beth didn't get. Beth had no idea how to summarize the night. It had been awkward, feeling so many people's eyes on her. She had no memories of ever being in a room with this many people at one time. Even though it was all pleasant and smiles, it made her feel trapped and slightly suffocated. No one really spoke to her and she didn't talk to them either, which was fine with her. However, this seemed to worry them, which told Beth that she used to be talkative. The fact that they thought she should work in the hospital told Beth that she used to be nurturing. From the way people kept scrutinizing her looks out of their peripheral vision, she must look different too.

As she suspected, they were comparing her now to the girl they knew before she was shot—the girl she didn't know anymore.

She kept waiting for something bad to happen that night. Walkers to crash through the house, but it didn't. Though she did notice that this family was different than most of the people in Alexandria. She saw the hunter's crossbow perched against the wall of any room he was in, noticed Rick's gun tucked into his waistband, the knife sheathed on the older woman's, Carol's, waist. This was the only thing that made her feel like these people were actually her family. They hadn't gone soft, they knew what the world was like outside the walls and they were still prepared for it.

While this did assure Beth that they were her family… or whatever you wanted to call a bunch of unrelated strangers that lived in a house together… it didn't make her certain that she would stay here. The walls, the crowds, the electricity, the false sense of security.

This place, Alexandria, was too good to be true.

Deanna had said earlier that it would be "the start of civilization again". This idea creeped her out. Civilization was something in books, it wasn't real anymore. Maybe, one day, in a distant future when the walkers had all died out, people—living people—could flourish again. But Beth was skeptical that this place would be the birthplace of the new world.

The walls were built backwards for Christ's sake.

She wouldn't stay here long enough to find out if they held.

However, she looked over at Morgan, comfortably lounging on the couch and smiling with Rick. He wouldn't want to leave. Only one day here and she could already see worry lines disappearing from his face. Of course, he would go with her if she asked; Morgan and her were bonded irrevocably. But that was exactly why she wouldn't ask.

The body heat and laughter of 14 people, combined with the weight of her impending plan to leave, made the house feel claustrophobic. So she pushed off of the counter where she leaned, off the side of the group, and slipped silently out the back door. Lucky trotted out with her, following her as he always would.

Beth walked around the porch until she got to the side where she could see the street but she was out of the reach of the small solar-powered streetlights.

After a few minutes, the back door creaked open and Lucky's tail gave one swish of contentedness as Michonne came around the corner of the house.

"Deanna holds these huge parties whenever someone new comes in," she didn't look at Beth when she spoke, she just stared ahead. It took the pressure off of Beth to respond. "Gets real crowded. I ended up on the porch my first night too."

"It gets better, more natural. But it'll take time," Michonne glanced at Beth out of the corner of her eye. Beth knew she must have seen the restlessness in her because she wasn't finished. "You gotta give it time before you go running off alone."

Beth smiled and a chuckle tumbled out of her lips.

"How'd you know?" she asked.

"When I first met up with your group, I was real skeptical. Spent a long time on my own and didn't trust anyone. Snuck away more than once, ready to leave, go back on the road alone. I must've had that same crazy look in my eyes that you've got now," she had chuckled but then her face turned serious again. "Never could bring myself to do it though and I don't regret it one bit. You're a smart girl, you'll figure that out yourself soon enough, but I thought I would help you get there."

"You mean I used to be smart, before. You don't know me now," Beth snapped. She knew that Michonne was just trying to be friendly but she didn't want these people to make assumptions about her based on the Beth they knew two years ago.

"Yeah, the old you was a smart girl, but I'm not talking about her. I'm talking about the girl that survived in this world for two years. You did good out there, keeping yourself, Lucky and Morgan safe… now it's time to rest." Michonne looked sincere at this and didn't wait for a reply before turning to go back inside.

Beth shook her head even though Michonne couldn't see.

No one gets to rest in this world. Safety was just an illusion. But Michonne was right about one thing. She would need to rest up before she decided to make her next move.

/

**A/N: Uh-oh. Beth is already making plans to run away…**

**Thanks for reading everyone! What did y'all think of the family dinner? It was really hard to write with all the characters involved and I was really nervous about letting you down. I know that so many of you wanted Beth to get her memory back when she saw Judith but I worked in clinical research labs with these patients and I am sorry if it ruins some TV magic or disappoints you and that is NOT how memory and PBIs work unfortunately. **

**I'm still looking for someone who can draw that wants to help me out with an epic TWD project! PM me if you're interested. **

**Next chapter:**** is a long one and there is some precarious, sexual Bethyl tension. **

**What did you think of Maggie's POV? And Daryl in this chapter? And the interaction with Judith? Please leave a review! **


	17. The Lesson

**A/N: I am so so so so so sorry that this is a week late. I have been super busy at work and… I got a new puppy! He climbs in my lap every time I sit down (he's way too adorable to push him off), plus I have to get up and take him downstairs almost every 30 minutes to go pee. So basically I've gotten nothing done. I will upload some pictures so y'all can enjoy his little face too. Thanks for being patient! **

**It is a long one to make it up to you! **

Companion song: "Wicked Games" by The Weeknd (caution: explicit lyrics!)

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

**Please review, your comments make me happier than Glenn reuniting with Maggie! **

/

**Chapter 17: The Lesson**

The next morning Maggie and Rick stopped by the house to take them to their prospective days of work.

Beth hated the clinic but she gave it a full week. It was basically a bunch of waiting around while nothing happened, punctuated with moments of assuring people that they were safe in terrible, hopeless situations. Beth already watched one person come in from a run with a bite on his arm, they tried to amputate it but the fever had already spread before he was brought in so it had all been pointless. Dr. Ortiz gave the man pain medication and whispered soothing nonsense into his ear until he slowly faded away from the world of the living. While Beth knew that it was better to die peacefully in the clinic bed, than outside being ripped apart like Kyle or Dr. Edwards, it sucked either way. And Beth knew that she was no use in the clinic—she was better at preventing injuries than healing them.

She wanted to go out on runs.

So one night after dinner, she approached Rick.

Morgan and Beth had moved into Rick's house earlier that week, as planned. It was awkward at first. Living in a town with other people was strange enough. But now she also shared a bathroom, one with hot showers and flushing toilets, with other people. Most of them had stopped staring at her. They had either accepted that she was different or had just decided to give her some space, she didn't know which. Most nights she didn't join them at the table for dinner. Group dinners were still too suffocating. However, she had slowly gotten to know some of members of her old family. Michonne had begun joining Beth for her morning runs; she caught Beth leaving one morning and asked if she could come to get back into shape. She got to know Rick because he checked her gun out to her almost everyday when she went outside the walls. Though, no one knew that she snuck out almost every night without official approval. Carl and her actually spent time together in the kitchen. Beth didn't like depending on others for food so she and Carl would usually cook meals. He had taught her how to cook using "normal" kitchen tools as he called them.

However, there were two people that had avoided her like the plague. Maggie and Daryl. She was smart enough to guess that Maggie was avoiding her out of grief—a sister coming back from the dead only to be a totally different person. But she didn't understand why the archer avoided her… he had seemed so adamant about being near her that first night. Now the only time she saw him was when they awkwardly ran into each other in the upstairs hallway. Beth didn't spend too much time thinking about the man who lived across the hall though, because it didn't matter. She was still planning on leaving, and she would use the runs as a way to scope out where to go.

Rick was sitting on the floor with Judith when she approached him. The little girl waddled over and tried to show Beth the picture she had drawn but Beth basically ignored her. Rick's brow furrowed at this, but he smoothed out his features after a moment.

"Rick, can we talk?" she asked, standing over him.

"Sure, Beth. Let's go outside," he tipped his head towards the door and stood up. One of his joints cracked on the way up. Lucky stayed behind with Judith on the floor of the living room.

Outside, she leaned against the porch railing and Rick placed his hands on his hips, waiting for her to speak.

She didn't waste any time, "I don't want to work in the clinic."

"Yeah, Doc mentioned that you weren't too excited about it," he nodded in understanding at this, completely unsurprised. "We'll find somethin' else for you to do. Got plenty of room in the kitchens or guard duty."

Rick was a problem-solver. Beth had already seen how his brain was constantly working, finding the best way out of sticky situations, always thinking two steps ahead. It was clear why people chose to follow him.

"No," she said roughly. "I wanna go out. Out on runs or scouting missions."

He looked down at the wooden planks and Beth knew that he was already thinking of ways to talk her out of it.

"Beth, I can't let ya do that… it ain't a good idea."

"Why's that?" She kept her cool, suspecting that Rick would see an angry outburst as instability and just another reason to keep her behind the walls.

His green eyes met hers and they glowed from the small, solar-powered streetlight behind her. He had a plethora of reasons ready, of course.

"Well, first, I don't honestly feel good about sending a young girl out there to the walkers," her anger rose at this statement but he wasn't done. "Second, you've been out there so long, I don't know how you'll do on a team. I've gotta look out for everyone's safety and I won't put you out there without knowing how you'll do," Rick was looking at her sadly, but seriously. Beth was already coming up with counter arguments. "Lastly, all those crews are full right now. I'm sorry, Beth."

She took a deep breath, attempting to settle her fury so she could have a rational conversation with the leader.

"Rick, I don't know who I was before… but I am not the 'young girl' you used to know. I survived out there for two years. That life—the one outside the walls with the walkers—is the only one I know. Playing house, with these perfectly manicured lawns and family dinners. I don't know how to do this, how to live like this," her voice was low, she didn't want the others to hear her desperation. "I'm goin' stir-crazy in here. I'm no good at life behind walls, but I am good out there. Surviving is what I do. Ask Morgan, he'll vouch for me."

He stared at her for a long time. Just stood there with his hands on his hips, eyes boring holes into her skull, deciding her fate. She wondered what he saw.

"I'll think about it, Beth. Until I decide, why don't you work on guard duty with Michonne and do some training with Abe or Daryl? They're our best fighters and I won't send people out there without training," he seemed genuinely concerned about her when he said this.

"All right," she said with a single nod as she pushed off the railing, "Thanks." She passed by Rick as she stepped passed to the doorway, he was as still as a statue staring out at the street in front of the house.

Upstairs, she tromped straight into her room, Lucky following close at her heels. There was a small amount of light visible under the door from Daryl's bedroom across the hall from hers. She couldn't help but wonder how training with him would go considering he hadn't spoken to her in a week.

/

The voices from the porch wafted up through his open window. Daryl had been sitting in the windowsill, sharpening a knife and jonesing for a cigarette. He'd been chain smoking like the old days and only had one left in the pack he found at the airport last week but he was determined to save that one. Though Beth was making this insurmountable. She wants to go on runs, back to the walkers, outside the safety of the wall.

He could tell Rick didn't want her to go out there either, making excuses left and right to keep her at a job inside Alexandria.

But she wouldn't budge. It seemed like the only thing that hadn't changed about Beth was her stubbornness.

Rick mentioned that she could take training with Daryl and his hackles went up.

_What the hell is he doing?_

It was true that everyone was trained before taking a job on the teams outside. But Daryl never did any of the training. He recruited people, brought them in, and then saw them whenever he happened to be walking around Alexandria. He would definitely need to talk to Rick tomorrow about this 'training.'

There were soft footsteps that came to a brief stop in front of his door before Beth's door clicked closed. He went to sleep soon after this, planning on waking up early in order to get out of the house before Beth and Michonne's morning run. He had been doing his best to avoid her; waking up early, eating dinner at Aaron's, taking extra shifts on the wall. At first, he wanted to watch out from her from afar and after she told him to get away from her the first night, he was upset but he thought that she was still Beth. However, the family dinner is what broke him.

This woman, who was now living across the hall from him, was not Beth. He had seen how she skirted away from Judith, had seen how she glowered at everyone at the table over dinner. The old Beth would have spent hours cuddling with Lil Asskicker and would have been the laughing and singing with her family instead of sitting alone on the porch.

The Beth he knew, and fell in love with, shared next to nothing with this woman now. They looked similar, had the same scars, and were stubborn as hell, but that was where the list ended. While his brain knew this, his heart wouldn't stop aching for her. One morning he saw her coming home from a run, sweaty and flushed, and he couldn't help reacting to her. He had dreamt about her for two years and he hadn't been attracted to anyone else since then, Daryl told himself that it was only natural. But all the same, he needed to avoid her until his body could fall in line with what his head had already figured out; that this was not really Beth.

Before the sun rose the next morning, Daryl was already up and taking care of Judith. She was sick with a bad cold and hadn't slept much the night before. He could hear her coughing and sniffling all night, even from the neighboring room, so he woke up early to make her oatmeal and orange juice.

"Thanks Uncle Daryl," she cooed from where she was snuggled on the couch when he brought in her food.

"Yer welcome, baby," he replied as he plopped down on the couch too. Judy was still so little that she only took up one section of the three that made up the sofa.

He leaned back and threw his arm over his eyes. Daryl had dozed off and started awake when something warm and wet touched his hand. His eyes popped open and the arm that had been on his head flew out in self-defense. When the blurriness of sleep cleared, he found himself staring at Beth's dog with big, blue eyes with brown and black fur, and a swishing tail.

The girl herself didn't spare a glance towards Daryl, she was merely a blonde blur that ghosted out the front door with Michonne. A high-pitched whistle from outside caused Lucky's ears to perk up and he bolted out the door after Beth. Daryl huffed a loud sigh and stood up, his joints cracking in the process.

Judith was asleep again, so he took her empty oatmeal bowl back to the kitchen before going off in search of Rick. He was upstairs getting ready for the day, the bathroom mirror still foggy from his shower, when Daryl barged in.

"What the hell?" Daryl demanded.

Rick stood shirtless with his pants hung low on his hips and a toothbrush in his mouth. He raised his eyebrows at Daryl. Daryl knew that Rick knew what he was upset about because they never really needed much verbal communication. However, sometimes Rick could be a true pain in the ass and would feign confusion in order to make Daryl talk.

"I'm givin' lessons now?" he felt his voice rising but didn't care. He was still pissed about Rick volunteering him to train Beth. And for that matter, the fact that he was even considering letting her out of the walls again.

_No, no. Don't go there! You're not her protector anymore, that's not the same girl so it doesn't matter if she goes outside Alexandria,_ he told himself.

"Ah, so you heard that then?" Rick asked, looking at Daryl in the mirror with an unashamed glint in his eyes.

"Course I heard. What the hell were ya thinkin'? I don't do lessons!"

"I know ya don't… but you should. I always told you that you should, now's as good as time as any to start." He chuckled a little, toothbrush still hanging out of his mouth, at Daryl's look of incredulity.

"Look, I know you've been avoiding her. Waiting until she's out on a run before coming downstairs, leaving before she gets back, eating dinner at Aaron's place or hanging out next door all day." Rick spit out the last of the toothpaste and rinsed his mouth before finally spinning around to face him.

Daryl scoffed and crossed his arms in a defensive position but he shrugged his shoulders as if to say 'I dunno what you're talking about.'

"We've all seen it and it's ridiculous. It's gotta stop." He pushed his way out of the bathroom and snatched up a gray button down shirt off the bed.

"I know it was… hard on you… losing her in Atlanta," he looked up from his buttons momentarily but Daryl suddenly looked at the floor like it was the most interesting thing on the planet. "But that's no reason to push her away now. You're getting a second chance. Even before the dead started walking that would have been a miracle—now it's unheard of. It's not somethin' you just walk away from."

"It's different now, she's not the same person," he mumbled almost incoherently after several, extended moments of silence.

At this, Rick got pissed.

"Dammit, Daryl. Of course she's not the same. We all change out there on the road, you've got to! You can't tell me you don't remember what that was like. She's different, she adapted… but deep down it's still her. You'd know that if you bothered to be in the same damn room as her for more than a minute."

He let his hair fall in his eyes and didn't respond, feeling a lot like a child being scolded. Rick's anger visibly melted away after a moment, he had gotten much better at controlling his temper behind the walls of Alexandria.

The leader's voice was soft but tenacious when he spoke again, "She is back, beyond all reason and all hope, she is back after two years and a world of walkers. I love ya too damn much to let you throw this opportunity away, brother." Rick clasped a hand on Daryl's shoulder and their eyes met. Daryl could see that his friend was only trying to help.

"Do the lessons or I'll have to lock the both of ya in a room," he ordered lightly, and holstered his python.

"Guess you can call me Mr. Miyagi," Daryl mumbled, slightly defeated. However, there was a sudden, unexplained buoyancy in his chest.

Rick laughed and nodded his head before striding out of the bedroom.

/

_Just get it over with._ He told himself as he approached the grassy park area near the northern wall of Alexandria.

His crossbow bounced slightly off of his back and there was a distinct knot in his shoulder where the bulk of its weight sat all the time. It was going to be a muggy day, he could already tell this much from the moisture that clung to his skin even before 6am. The humidity reminded him of Georgia, which was both a good and bad thing—but he pushed old memories out of his mind as the green commons came into view.

Daryl spotted her bright blonde hair easier than seeing a lighthouse at night. She stood in a pair of gray sweatpants with her recurve bow slung easily across her back. From this distance it was easy to fool himself into thinking she was the same girl he watched hanging laundry on the lines in the prison yard all those years ago. Daryl had seen her so many days from up in the watchtower, doing chores or taking Judith on walks. But as soon as he saw her move, this illusion was shattered. Her stance was tense, poised for action about 30 feet away from a gnarled old tree. As he watched, a flash of sliver flew from her hand and with a considerable _thunk_, embedded into the thick tree trunk. Daryl threw knives too. He had for years. But still he found his eyebrows had involuntarily shot up in surprise. Seeing little Beth handle a knife with that level of skill was unbelievable. Daryl remembered how terrified she had been of using his bow at first, and how she used to blanch away from him when he skinned animals. He couldn't reconcile this severe woman in front of him with the gentle one from his memory.

_Just do this one damn lesson so Rick will get off your back_, he reminded himself.

"Hey," he grunted by way of greeting when he came within earshot of her.

Lucky came bounding out of the bushes towards him and jumped around Daryl excitedly with his pink tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.

"Hey," she said with a confused look at her dog before she glanced up into his eyes. He forgot to breath for a moment. Those piercing blue pools threatened to drown him—in memories, in emotion, in her.

_Not her. Not her. It's not her._ The mantra repeated in his head, but he wasn't sure if he was reminding himself or trying to convince himself.

"Sorry ya had to come out here for this, Rick said he doesn't let people outta the walls without lessons though, so I guess you're used to it," she continued, oblivious to Daryl's inner turmoil.

"It's fine," he grumbled, averting his eyes as she yanked the knife out of the tree and returned it to the sheath on her hip. He noticed that it was his knife that he had left with her in the fire engine but he knew that she had no way of remembering that it had been his.

They stood in silence for a moment, unsure what to say to the stranger in front of them.

"So… how do you normally start these trainings?" she questioned.

_How the hell should I know_, he wanted to snap but he held his tongue.

"Let's just throw some punches."

She smirked at this, "You sure? I'd hate to mess up that nice face of yours again."

"I'll be ready for ya this time Greene." He chuckled at her sass and it reminded him of their last few weeks alone before she had been taken. They had gotten so comfortable together while they were alone, and jokes had been tossed around easier than Daryl had done with anyone before. But then he saw the grin slide off her face.

"What did you just call me?" Beth's voice was softer now, all joking was gone.

"Uh… Greene. It's your last name…" Daryl stuttered into this unknown territory "Didn't Maggie tell ya?"

"No… she hasn't said much of anythin' to me," there was a sad smile on her face. "She been takin' lessons from you on that?"

"Nah," he said as guilt ripped at his stomach. He didn't know that Maggie had been avoiding Beth too. He wanted to comfort her; she looked small and so much like her old self in that moment. But he shook this urge off, she was not the same—she didn't even know her own last name.

"Beth Greene. Beth…Greene," the blonde repeated the name as if testing it out, seeing how it rolled off the tongue. The corner of her lips floated into a smile again and Daryl had a flicker of hope that maybe it would help her remember something from before her injury.

No such luck.

She used his distraction to her advantage and swung at him. At the very last second, he dodged it. He tossed his crossbow to the ground and prepared for another blow. Beth's right fist shot out towards his face and as he knocked it out of the way, but before he could react her left hand connected with his stomach. This continued for a number of minutes—Beth swinging and occasionally connecting a punch on Daryl. He only dodged her blows, not daring to send his own fist towards her. He'd never hit a woman in his life and he wouldn't start now. But Beth grew frustrated with this.

"Come on! You're not even fighting back. How is that supposed to prepare me for what's out there?" she shouted through gritted teeth.

"Beth, I ain't gonna hit you."

She sighed loudly but she kept brawling. There was a mischievous glint in her eyes now and her swings were coming harder and she began kicking out too.

She was trying to provoke him.

Trying to hit him enough to force him to fight back.

When Beth's arm launched into a right hook he stepped back and used her momentum to swing her around so that her back was pressed up against his chest. He gripped her wrists, tight enough that she couldn't move but not tight enough to actually hurt her, and forced her arms to cross in front of her own chest.

She was intoxicating. The smell of vanilla and peaches filled his nostrils, how the hell did she smell so good? They used the same shower and this was definitely not the smell of their soap. Her blonde hair had started to fall out of its ponytail and wisps of it tickled his face. Beth's body was pulled flush against his chest, and Daryl fought his animal instinct that screamed at him to turn her around and kiss her. Every inch of him that was touching her felt like it was on fire. Beth was wriggling slightly against him, which didn't help the situation. Trying to get her wrists free and jabbing elbows into his ribs, but this barely made him flinch. It might leave bruises but he was so numb to pain that it didn't even faze him.

"That ain't gonna work, no matter how many times you hit me I'm not gonna fight ya," he breathed raggedly into her ear.

One of Beth's legs swung out and connected with his kneecap, catching him off balance. She used his weight against him and they toppled over onto the ground. Daryl landed flat on his back and she fell straight on top of him, knocking the wind out of him. She scrambled around and settled her knees on his arms so they were successfully pinned to the grass. Seeing Beth on top of him made his heart race. The sun was just coming up and it made her look like she was glowing, the little pieces of loose hair lit up like a halo.

"Got ya," she gasped heartily with a wicked smile on her face.

Daryl could have stayed under her like that forever. They were breathing heavily and there was a pink flush spread across her cheeks. He got an inexplicable urge to tease her.

"How long do you really think you can hold me here, Greene?" He asked with the cock of his eyebrow.

"As long as I—" Beth's light-hearted sentence was cut off when he used his legs to roll them both over. His hips fit neatly inside her lean legs. He was on top of her now, pinning her arms over her head but he carefully kept his weight on his knees so he didn't crush her.

"What were ya saying about keepin' me down?" He asked sarcastically.

Beth was laughing and staring into Daryl's face one second, but as Daryl watched the look on her face changed. Her eyes glazed over and seemed to stare off to a different time.

"…Beth?" When she didn't respond, he pushed off of her. "Beth… are… are you okay?"

Daryl was about ready to snap his fingers in her face when she came out of it. The light reentered her eyes and she focused on Daryl again.

"I'm fine," she said curtly as she stood and brushed stems of grass off of her arms. Lucky scurried over and began sniffing and circling around his owner protectively.

"Nah, Beth, you're not fine. What just happened?" It was just like her to downplay something that was happening to her. But for that briefest moment, Daryl felt a flame of hope ignite inside him. It caught onto every fiber in his being like his soul was made of kindling. The way she stared off, indistinct to the world around them, he thought that she was remembering something from a previous life.

_Did she just have a memory from before the gunshot? Which memory was it? Does she remember something from the old world? Does Beth remember me? _His mind was corybantic with questions.

"Are we done with training?" she finished in a manner that made it clear there would not be a discussion about whatever just happened.

He didn't know what to do. The old Beth, the one he had known and loved, was open and willing to talk. She wore her heart on her sleeve and had an inexplicable talent of drawing this same quality out of others. Now she was shut down as completely as he used to be. It would take someone much stronger than him to crack her open.

"Yeah, a'right," he grunted after her.

They both gathered their weapons left in the grass before they started sparing. Daryl turned towards the sniper tower, going up there and being alone with something to focus on that wasn't Beth would be good for him. A distraction from the burning questions about what just happened… not just the part where Beth freaked out but also the part before that. When him and Beth were wrestling and laughing. He saw a flicker of the sweet, innocent Beth from the farm until that flittered out to be replaced by the terse, angry stranger. She had only been back for a week and Daryl was already tangled up with conflicts.

When he reached the top of the street he looked back, expecting to see Beth turning right at the street for the house they shared. Instead, she went left.

_What the hell is she doing? _

But he shook this question off. It wasn't any of his damn business. He had given her the lesson that Rick had asked him to so he could go back to ignoring her.

When he got to the tower Spencer Monroe, Deanna's last living son, was already on watch. His legs were propped up on the window and he had an easy grin on his face. That was Spencer—always relaxed, always smirking. At first, this made Daryl want to punch his shiny white teeth in but as he got to know the guy he began to respect his genuine optimism. He was even a little envious at how easy it came for Spencer.

This was all old news to Daryl by now so he just pushed into the small room on top of the building that used to be a chapel.

"Hey man, what's going on?" Spencer asked in surprise.

"I'm here to take over the watch," Daryl responded as he reached to take the rifle from the younger man's hands.

"Are you sure? Sasha is supposed to take over for me after lunch… it's barely even 8 am."

Daryl just shrugged, not wanting to explain his reasoning for wanting to take the shift. "Do ya want the morning off or not?"

An effortless chuckle came from Spencer's mouth as he got up and made to leave, "Can't argue with that!"

The archer's knees cracked when he squatted into the chair. He noticed that the door hadn't closed and knew that Spencer must still be standing behind him.

"You should take ah' picture instead of standin' there staring," Daryl half-joked.

"I was just wondering how the new people were adjusting, Morgan and Beth, Deanna was asking." Daryl was skeptical for a moment. Had he seen what happened with Beth in the park and was trying to bait him? Was Deanna trying to play her match-maker games again? Or was it just an innocuous question from a concerned community member? However, Spencer was unabashed by his question so Daryl figured he was just being paranoid.

"They're good," he responded though he was not entirely sure it was the truth.

"Really? Because I heard both of them still don't have permanent jobs yet. We're looking for more people to go on runs. I'm thinking they would be good since they lived out there on their own for so long." While Spencer talked, Daryl looked out of the scope of the rifle for something to do. He had known that Rick had lied to Beth last night about there being no spots on the run teams of course. Spencer had been going out with Glenn's team for a little over a year now, and he suspected that it was in an effort to make up for Aiden's mistakes.

After a few moments of silence Spencer asked "You know them best, what do you think?"

Through the scope, Daryl saw something, or rather someone, on the far west wall of Alexandria. His heart pounded in fear. Was someone entering their city?

But as he watched the figure, he noticed that the person was climbing up and out, instead of climbing into the town. The climber had a hoodie on but when they reached the top, they turned and Daryl saw Beth's face and some lose strands of blonde hair.

_Shit, she's sneaking out. _

"Daryl?" Spencer's voice penetrated his preoccupation.

"Yeah, they'd be great," Daryl responded without thinking.

"Great. I'll see if they want to go on the run tomorrow. Do you know where they're at?" His head snapped up to Spencer's face after he saw Beth drop over the back of the wall.

"No idea," he wasn't going to tell Spencer that Beth just escaped his dad's 'impenetrable' fence. "I gotta go," Daryl murmured as he pushed out of the door.

"Wha—wait! I thought you were taking my shift?" Spencer shouted after him but the hunter was already halfway down the spiral staircase.

He was picking up the pace towards the gate and Michonne, who was luckily on guard duty, let him out. He didn't tell her where he was going, but instead just let her assume he was hunting or something. The hunter traced back towards where he saw Beth climb over. Peeking through the infinitesimal gap between slats, he saw Lucky sitting obediently staring at the wall.

_Why the hell is she going over the wall alone, without the dog even? What the fuck is wrong with that woman? _

He found light tracks leading away, he must be 15 minutes behind her by now but he was determined to find her.

/

**A/N: Rawrrr ;) some close encounters there with our favorite couple. What do you think happened to Beth? Where do y'all think she's going?**

**Next chapter: Daryl goes looking for Beth and shenanigans ensue. After that: the action picks WAY up! **

**Please review, your comments make me happier than Glenn reuniting with Maggie! **


	18. Need

**A/N: Hello lovely readers! I have so many excuses for why this chapter is so late but I won't give y'all any of them, I will just say that I am SO SORRY it has been so long. Thank you to those readers who are still following this story and me!**

Companion song: "I Do"- Susie Suh

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

**Please review! It has been hard posting a chapter after so long, I would like to know if you all are still interested in this story. **

/

**Previously on The New Normal:**Beth was shot in the head and her family, thinking she was dead, left her in a broken down fire truck outside of Atlanta. When she wakes up without any memories, **Dr. Edwards and Officer Kyle** help her navigate this dangerous world. After walkers rip apart both of her companions, she is injured and alone when **Morgan Jones** finds her. Beth discovers that the **bullet wound** has not only **stolen her memories**, but has rendered her** incapable of feeling fear**. However, this doesn't make her immune to trouble. She was attacked by strangers and **was forced to kill** in order to protect herself and her family… but the images of them still haunt her. Following a map that Morgan found at a church in Georgia, they head towards Washington DC in search of Rick Grimes but after over **2 years** of searching, and adding a **dog named Lucky** to their company, they give up on ever finding his old friend.

Meanwhile, Rick, Daryl, Glenn, Maggie and the rest of the family have mourned Beth and settled into Alexandria. Daryl is still heartbroken and out on a recruiting mission with Aaron when he finds Beth alive. And although she has no memory of him, Beth, Morgan and Lucky follow the archer back to Alexandria. **But he is avoiding her— she is different**, too callous and too distant to be _his_ Beth. The Beth he was in love with really did die in Atlanta. But the rest of the family won't accept this. So Rick orchestrates a "lesson" so Daryl can teach Beth self defense. Things get steamy while they spar, but something happens inside Beth while she is wrapped in Daryl's arms. She scales the wall and runs off before Daryl can ask her what happened.

/

**Chapter 18: Need**

The scent of the forest was unlike any other. The damp earth combined with the crisp smell of pine leaves with a hint of flowers was rejuvenating. Being trapped within the walls of Alexandria for more than a week had been torture. She was supposed to sign out and use the "buddy system" whenever she left the town and return all weapons when she reentered—as she had been informed when she tried to leave using the actual gate on the first full day she was here—but after what happened with Daryl, Beth needed the kind of space only the woods could provide and she didn't want to deal with paperwork. So, she went over the wall.

She broke into a jog to get away faster, she felt like hunting and game would never come near Alexandria because of the noise. At about 4 miles away, she found a solid maple tree. The branches were scattered and sturdy so she climbed until there was a fork to sit in where she could watch the forest.

Beth already felt a little better in the woods, high up and hidden by the leaves. She felt safer, more in control. When she had been wrestling Daryl and gotten trapped underneath him, she was overcome with a memory. Not of Daryl, but of the other two men who had pinned her down like that: one in a dark pharmacy, the other in the woods near a stream. She had been overcome with a desire to stab Daryl with her knife like she had done to her attackers. But there was a stronger instinct that told her Daryl didn't mean her any harm. Part of her had been comfortable in his arms. Part of her liked it in his arms. The two urges had collided in her mind and she had frozen, unable to follow either command.

She was grateful that Daryl had gotten off of her when he did. It had been too confusing.

Now, she pushed thoughts of him out of her mind.

Or at least, she tried.

As she intensely focused on the sounds of the forest, visions of him kept creeping into her head. His dark blue eyes, the way his arms flexed when he carried his crossbow, and the feel of his hands on her while they were sparring.

Several animals crossed her path, but she let them go—not wanting to kill because it would mean getting down from her perch. She kind of liked watching the animals go about their lives, undisturbed by people or walkers. After almost an hour, a man materialized out of the forest. It wasn't a walker. The figure was virtually noiseless, not even rustling fallen leaves as it walked. She recognized him at once. His bow was nocked and his head swiveled between the ground and the woods surrounding him. Daryl had followed her, tracked her down like prey.

_Why doesn't he just leave me alone? I only just got him out of my head and now he's here again._ She thought, slightly irritated at both herself and him.

Beth must have been clumsy if he could have followed her so easily. He didn't look up into the tree for her as he approached the end of her trail. But before he could get close enough, she shot an arrow towards him.

It hit its mark perfectly, sticking in the dirt only an inch from his foot.

Daryl looked up, clearly surprised and slightly angry, into her hiding spot. She noticed that his expression softened in relief whenever he saw her.

"I didn't realize that your lessons extended into stalker duty," she sassed just loud enough for him to hear her.

He snorted, "I didn't realize you'd be runnin' away like a damn teenager."

Daryl effortlessly slung his crossbow over his shoulder and snatched the arrow out of the ground in one continuous motion. He inspected the arrow briefly, and then waggled it at her teasingly.

"I've got ten more, can catch plenty of food without gettin' down for that one," she looked away from him and tried to focus on the rabbit trail a few yards away from her tree.

When he didn't move, she looked back at him. Daryl was staring at her with his mouth in a tight line and his eyes squinted. He was squinting as if he was trying to see if he recognized her. She tried not to squirm under his scrutiny.

"Go on now, you're spooking my prey standin' there like scarecrow. Go on back home," she tried to keep her voice steady as she looked directly into his blue eyes.

"Nah, I gotta see these huntin' skills for myself," he chuckled in a way that she never would have thought was possible from a man as stoic as him. Daryl walked over the tree she was in and started to climb it. She couldn't help but notice that he was a lot less graceful in the tree than he was on the ground. It made him less intimidating though, to see that he wasn't perfect. So she was smiling as he settled onto a branch slightly below and to the right of her.

Daryl passed her arrow back up to her, feathers first. And for a long time, the pair just sat in the old maple tree. Neither of them talked and eventually game started wandering around the area again. The silence between them was comfortable and familiar.

She questioned, not for the first time, how well she had known Daryl before the accident. Beth considered asking Daryl but she wasn't certain that he would tell her the truth so she remained mute.

Beth shot three rabbits in the next half hour, but Daryl didn't shoot anything. He merely sat with a bolt ready in the tree and watched their surroundings. She had expected him to make it a competition, to see who could get the most kills, but he surprised her again by sitting and silently observing her skills instead. There was a huge bird that swooped down towards her kills and she shot it through the eye in midflight.

This finally prompted Daryl to ask, "Where'd ya learn to use that bow?"

She considered this.

"Dunno," the blonde responded as she peeked around the trunk towards Daryl.

He lifted his eyebrow at her with a slightly annoyed look and she knew that he wanted more information.

"Already knew how ta' use it pretty good when I first… acquired it," she didn't really want to tell the story of how she acquired the recurve bow—the men attacking her, Kyle being shot, murdering that man with those black-as-coal eyes, leaving an innocent man tied up in the store room… she was still haunted by what may have happened to him alone and weaponless. "And I just got better everyday since then."

Then she thought of something. If she already knew how to use the bow, she must have learned before she lost her memory, like how she had known the word 'walkers' or how she knew to kill them with headshots.

"Didn't I know how to use it before I was shot?" she asked, thinking he must know the answer better than she would.

The man in the ripped shirt peered up at her through his bangs again. "You were learning," he replied evasively.

She narrowed her eyes at him. By this point, she knew the rest of her little '_family_' pretty well and none of them used a bow. Only Daryl.

_He must have been teaching me, _Beth discerned with certainty.

"More of your lessons Mr. Dixon?"

Daryl almost flinched in pain at this comment. But then he fixed his face back into a stony mask as he shrugged by way of response.

They fell into another silence but this didn't prevent the mysterious man from entering her mind. Why had he been giving her bow lessons? It was clear from their 'lesson' this morning that Daryl Dixon didn't actually give lessons to people, as Rick had implied last night. So Rick had created this ruse to push the two of them together… but it wasn't even the first time Daryl had taught her something.

Never before had she wished for her memory back so badly. Maybe if she had her memories she would understand this stranger who seemed to know her better than anyone else, this stranger who seemingly taught her everything she knew that was valuable in this world.

It was probably another hour before a walker finally stumbled into the area. It was going towards a dead rabbit but Daryl easily shot it through the temple with a bolt. She leapt effortlessly down a few branches to land silently on the soft earth. She gathered the arrows and the bolt out of the prey's heads—four rabbits, two squirrels, one bird, and one walker in total. This would be enough to feed several families for tonight and tomorrow. She was tucking the animals into her game bag while Daryl cluttered out of the tree. Before he had righted himself, hands still busied climbing down the branches, four more walkers crashed through the trees towards them.

Beth snapped into action. She killed one with an arrow already locked on her string. That one hadn't even hit the ground before she was already pulling her knife from its sheath and stabbing the second one in the eye socket. The third she ran up behind, knocking it to the ground with a swift kick to the back, as she left it to reach the fourth. It was darting straight towards Daryl, who was quickly regrouping after jumping hastily from the tree. She pierced its brain stem through the back of its neck before the hunter had fully reloaded an arrow. Next she turned to return to the one she pushed over. It was still struggling to get up when she walked over—careful of its reach—and plunged the blade into the top of its skull. It crumpled to the ground instantly.

The quiet made her ears ring. She hadn't even realized how loud their snarls were while she was fighting. Her chest was heaving from adrenaline as she turned in a circle and searched the forest for any more threats. When she turned back to Daryl he was incredulous; eyes wide, mouth slightly open as if he went speechless in the middle of a sentence.

/

"_I'm getting good at this. Pretty soon I won't need you at all." _

Beth's musical voice played over and over in his head. He remembered that day so clearly—the day he taught her to use his crossbow, the day of the serious piggyback, the day they found the funeral home.

But Beth was right. As usual.

She had been right about so many things but he hadn't even thought about that exact moment until right now. She had been gone… dead… so he didn't think she'd ever used any of the skills he taught her. Daryl had been so very wrong. She not only used what she learned, she perfected it.

Beth definitely didn't need him at all.

He stood and stared at the four walkers she took out without even hesitating. Daryl hadn't even been able to get out of the damn tree fast enough to protect her. She sure as hell didn't need him anymore. For protection or food.

Hanging out with Beth in the tree and at their "lesson" had been fun, it had reminded him of their time alone after the prison fell. Those months that had been spent in waves of silence that grew more comfortable with each passing day or surrounded by Beth's music. The weeks where he learned everything about her, even the rhythm of her breaths. The days that he shared more about himself with her than anyone before. The moments that were slightly awkward because his brain turned to slush around her.

But those were gone now too. Beth was back but she was too different. She was callous, independent, and had an exterior as hard as he once had. Her goodness had been what broke down his walls more than two years ago, but this new woman would not be capable of that.

If not for the brilliant smiles, now much rare than before, she would have been unrecognizable. Particularly in that moment as she crouched, surveying the forest covered in the black sludge that was walker blood, looking fierce and unruffled by the incident.

"Let's get out of here before more are drawn in," Beth finally said after she had finished a slow circle, scouting the area. He remembered how frazzled she had been at the golf course after killing the walker with a wine bottle. Now, she wasn't even short of breath after taking out four walkers in less than a minute. She wasn't even fazed by it.

He had an immense respect for this, even though it was so unlike her.

"Grab yer game, Greene." She wasn't Beth anymore to him. Greene felt more fitting now.

The blonde pulled the arrows out of her prey and stuffed the animals into her bag. They fell into step as they headed back towards Alexandria.

"So when does the babysitting duty stop?" she asked after a while.

"What do ya mean?"

"I mean, when are you gonna stop watchin' me? Following me out into the woods, walkin' by my room at night, watchin' me whenever I come back from runs…" Daryl almost stopped in his tracks. He should have realized she would notice these things. But he had no idea how to respond.

"We used to know each other, right? So when do I get your trust back enough to not be under constant surveillance?" she continued when he hadn't responded.

He breathed a little easier; Beth might have seen him watching but she didn't know the reason.

"It'll stop." And in that moment, he really believed he could let her go.

/

When they got back to the community, they went separate ways. Daryl watched as Lucky came bounding excitedly over to Beth, jumped up and licked her in the face.

He went towards the back fence, intending to actually take watch duty for once.

Climbing up the West Wall ladder, he found that Carol was the one on the post.

"Hey Pookie," she said to him as he squatted down to sit on the wooden planks.

Abraham and the construction crew had built these posts at strategic intervals along the walls after The Wolves attacked. They were simple wooden structures that allowed them to watch the woods surrounding Alexandria. This prevented build-ups of walkers because they would be spotted ahead of time and made it harder for people to sneak up on them too.

He didn't respond to his cutesy nickname, just plopped down on the planks next to her chair. They sat in silence for upwards of thirty minutes. His crossbow next to him, he put his knees up and rested his arms on them. From here, he was totally concealed by the wall; this was done so people could take cover if people began firing on the watch-person.

"Did you go hunting?" she asked when he hadn't said anything.

"Sorta," he grunted back. The hunter wished desperately for a cigarette. As much as he wanted to forget it, the feeling of Beth rolling around on top of him or the vision of her sprawled out underneath him, legs around his hips… it replayed over and over in his mind. The hunter pulled out a cigarette. He had smoked nearly half a pack in the last week since Beth had been back. There were only two left. He would definitely go on the next supply run with Glenn's team to scour for cigarettes.

"Well hopefully you got some good game, I am getting sick of Rick's vegetables this week." He had gone back to farming when things settled down. But instead of using it as an excuse to hide from responsibilities, Rick now did it just as a way to feed everyone. They had a good size garden and others worked in it too.

"So how is it being in a house with Morgan and Beth?"

Carol was never one to beat around the bush. Daryl was used to it by now, and he supposed he could use a second opinion on Beth from someone who used to know her.

"It's alright… weird," he finally mumbled in response. There was no point in lying, she knew him well enough after more than four years that she could always tell. Carol waited for him to continue, surveying the forest and glancing at Daryl out of the corner of her eye.

"She's different. Not herself anymore," he finally finished. He couldn't find a way to explain it further than that.

"Yeah, I've seen it too… Barely talks, reads instead of writes, and doesn't even play with Judy." This was all an accurate summary, though it didn't include everything that had changed.

He just grunted in agreement before closing his eyes and resting his forehead on his crossed arms. That was really all the confirmation that he'd needed. Carol noticed that she was different too. Now he wanted to talk about something else.

"Do you think she really doesn't remember anything?"

"I'm damn sure ah' it," he grumbled. The faded yellow mark on his left eye was certain proof.

"How do you think she survived out there for so long? She doesn't talk much anymore and Morgan steers away from the subject anytime I ask about Beth or what happened. But he must've been there the whole time, protecting her and teaching her everything she knows. I don't know how he had the strength. How he kept them both afloat when she must've been such an anchor. When I last saw her, she could barely even kill a walker through the fence," Carol mused aloud.

He really wished she'd shut up. Daryl didn't want to think about the old Beth—the gentle woman he loved. So he didn't respond in the hopes that Carol would fall into silence.

But her continuing to talk about Beth would have been better than what happened next.

"You wanna distraction? Fool around a little bit?" She suggested, half teasing. But just as Daryl couldn't lie to her, she couldn't hide from him either. He sensed the hope behind her words. She was still as senselessly in love with him as had been with Beth.

Daryl didn't lift his head, and in one instant he remembered the one lapse in judgment he'd had with Carol just over a year ago. He'd had a particularly bad night, haunted by dreams of Beth, which wasn't unusual by any means. But these were not just the regular dreams of losing her. They were dreams of being with her, remembering how unbearably soft her skin was those few times he touched her, those quiet moments together in the darkness after they'd put Judith to bed, the stormy night he'd been pressed up against her in the trunk of that car... and his mind took on it's own imagination from there. He'd woken up hard and feeling starved. He had a desire for Beth that ran deep; it was a thirst that cut him as if she was ice water and he'd been trapped in an endless desert for years. He took a cold shower and he'd smoked the last three cigarettes he'd had at the time.

But he couldn't shake the dreams or the ghost of Beth's hands on him.

So he broke into Deanna's store of hard liquor that she always had out at her stupid welcome parties and he got drunk. Too drunk. After the end of the world, his alcohol tolerance had plummeted so it didn't even take much. Carol had come off of watch duty and was walking back home when she'd found him stumbling around on the streets of Alexandria near the medical clinic. He'd been so distracted that he hadn't even brought his crossbow with him. Carol took him into the clinic to one of the cots since she couldn't carry him back to the house on her own. The combination of sleep deprivation and his beer goggles, mixed with the lingering sensations of Beth in his dreams, had led him into a small fit of insanity. Maybe that was what Rick had felt after Lori died, with the hallucinations. But he saw Carol as if she was Beth in the darkness, and he kissed her. She'd wanted that for so long, hinted at it, even outright asking him for it on more than one occasion. So Carol had seized the opportunity gladly and kissed him back. However, as soon as he ran his hands up to her hair, he snapped out of it. The hair was all wrong, it wasn't long but short. Daryl had pushed her off and ended up leaving for home. Daryl never really thought about that day again. It was a drunken mistake that he wanted to forget.

"Why don't you take a break? I'll finish up your shift here," he grunted finally.

She sighed loudly and it was obvious that she was despondent about his rejection. "Daryl, she's different now. She's not the girl you knew in Georgia. You'll just have to accept that," she responded harshly as she got up and made her way down the ladder.

After he moved into the chair, he took out his rag and his bolts to start cleaning them. He had made several of his own by now but those were never as good as the metal ones. There was never anything left in weapon stores now days so the only way to get new ones was to take them from somebody else… trouble was that not many people in this world carried a crossbow. The repetitive motion helped distract him for a little while.

By the time Tara came up for guard duty around sunset, his thoughts had circled back to Beth again and temptations were running high to smoke his last cigarette.

He sought out Glenn after that and found him walking home from the clinic.

"I'm comin' on the next run," he grunted at Glenn in lieu of a greeting.

"Got a big shopping list or just sick of the walls?" Glenn asked easily, unruffled at Daryl's abrupt interruption of his walk home.

Daryl actually gave a small snort of laughter at how well Glenn knew him, "A little bit ah' both."

"Well we're taking off first thing in the morning."

"Thought it wadn't scheduled for another week," the hunter half-asked.

"Talked to the doc, she needs more antibiotics. Three people on the construction crew got cut up this week and one of them is already showing signs of Sepsis. Plus, I want to find Maggie some prenatal vitamins and stuff," the younger man said with the slightly stupefied smile he got every time he talked about the baby.

"Lil' Asskicker The Second," Daryl said and Glenn smiled wider. They fell into a silence as they rounded the corner to their street.

"She still hasn't told Beth. I thought she'd be excited to tell her right away… but she hasn't even wanted to talk to her," Glenn stated quietly.

Daryl just nodded, "Beth's not the same kid that Maggie grew up with."

"Yeah she is," he stopped short and Daryl followed suit.

Daryl frowned, had Glenn really not noticed?

"She is different, sure. But she's still the same person," Glenn insisted but Daryl was remained unconvinced. His words were nonsense, the youngest Greene girl had just proved that to him in the forest.

"You're just as ridiculous as Maggie! But what do you think Hershel would say?" Glenn was fired up now, yelling at Daryl in a way that would've gotten most people a swift punch in the jaw.

Daryl thought about this. He didn't really know what Hershel would say, the old man always had a way of surprising him. But Daryl could guess that Hershel Greene would have done. He would have accepted his youngest daughter back without a second of doubt. Daryl had great respect for Hershel, he was a good man, stronger than anyone else he'd ever met. And this made Daryl feel a knot in is stomach, he hadn't accepted Beth like he should have.

Before he could respond to Glenn, Rick walked out of their front door.

"Beth's gonna go with y'all on the run tomorrow. Says she knows a hospital nearby that they already cleared."

Glenn smiled wide, "Looks like it'll be a party then since Daryl's coming too."

And Rick shot a glance and a knowing smirk at Daryl from where he stood on the porch. He was just loving pushing Beth and him together.

"Well good, you'll have a strong team then," Rick said with a head nod.

"Great," he said sarcastically, "Now I'm gonna eat some damn dinner and get away from you two smilin' like idiots."

But as he stomped up the porch, he felt a grin tug at his own lips. Maybe Glenn was right, he'd give it a chance tomorrow on the run. While searching for meds and cigarettes, he'd also try finding the old Beth hidden in that new woman he'd seen in the woods today.

/

A/N: What did you think of the Daryl/Carol past? What about Beth liking Daryl? How long can Daryl keep pushing Beth away? (hint: not long ;P)

Next chapter: the group goes out on their first run together, Daryl and Beth get in a fight and _someone_ gets trapped and left behind.

Please review! **It has been hard posting a chapter after so long, I would love to know if y'all are still interested in this story. Will post again soon if anyone is still reading! **


	19. Run

A/N: WOWWWWW. Such an amazing response! Thank y'all so much for all the reviews, I am so happy that you all like the story still! I ended up cutting this chapter into 2 parts so the next part will come very soon. (:

Companion song: "Salvation" by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

**Please review, more reviews=faster posting of the next chapter. **

/

**Chapter 19: The Run **

The grass bent under her feet as she ran. Her breathing was ragged. Lucky galloped next to her. Beth's legs burned and she wanted to give up.

But she didn't.

When she finally reached the end of the street, she slowed to a walk.

Michonne had skipped out on their run this morning since she'd worked an overnight shift on the wall. But Beth needed it today. She couldn't get Daryl Dixon out of her head last night. Their closeness during their lesson and the weird way he stared at her after she'd killed those walkers. So she ran to try to knock those thoughts out of her head, but it didn't work of course.

She walked back up the porch as her breathing returned to normal and Lucky went to get water out of a bowl that sat on the kitchen floor. Morgan was already awake and was bumping around in the kitchen to get food ready. She sat down even though she was still sweaty and red faced from her run.

"Excited to get out of these walls again?" Morgan asked her without any pretense.

"Yeah. I know you like it old man, but it still seems fake to me."

"Not exactly the first time you'll be out of the walls since we've been here though, is it?"

Beth smiled in response. Of course he knew that she'd been sneaking out over the walls almost everyday in the last two weeks. "Can't hide anything from ya' can I?"

"Nah. But it's my job to be worried about ya. That's what families do."

At this, her mind wandered to Maggie. They had been sisters.

_We __**are**__ sisters, _she corrected herself.

Maggie certainly didn't act how she would have expected. The tall brunette had gone out of her way to ignore Beth. This was definitely not like Kyle or Morgan—the only two people Beth really remembered as "family"—ever acted towards her. It made Beth think that she must have done something really wrong to make Maggie so angry with her, or maybe that Maggie just wanted the old Beth back.

But whoever that was, the old Beth, no one had bothered to explain to her.

Since the brief slip at the first family dinner where Maggie said she used to be good at medical things, not a single person actually mentioned what she used to be like or how she had changed. However, she still saw them looking at her when they thought she wouldn't notice and she felt confident that they were searching for the old Beth. Maggie wasn't worried about her safety like Morgan was; Maggie was more concerned with getting her real baby sister back.

"Maggie still hasn't talked to you?" Morgan guessed her thoughts, he was good at that after spending two years as sole companions.

"Nah. And I overheard Rick talking to Michonne about how her and Glenn are plannin' on moving out too," she shared with Morgan. "Guess I'm not the best house guest."

"There's something else goin' on. I'm sure Maggie will tell you when she's ready."

"What do you know, old man?" she teased him with his favorite nickname.

"I don't know anything, just making some educated guesses," he responded with a chuckle.

"About what?" Morgan had peaked her curiosity, what did he know about Maggie that she didn't?

He chuckled and then said, "Wouldn't want to ruin any surprises."

And before she could protest, Daryl walked into the kitchen with little Judith following on his heels. Beth had noticed that Daryl got her out of bed, made her breakfast and got her over to the school every morning. She wondered why he did this. Why he was the one in charge of her in the mornings. Did he choose to do that or had it been appointed to him? All of the family members helped take care of her in different ways and she couldn't help but marvel at just how loved this little girl was. Especially now, as there was a softness in Daryl's features that she only ever saw when he was looking at Judith.

When he looked up and saw Beth in the kitchen, still sweaty and red faced from her jog, he averted his eyes quickly as if he had tried to stare into the sun.

"Morning Daryl and Judith," Morgan said politely and the little girl smiled as she opened the bottom cupboard that held the dried cereal she liked to eat.

"Morgan. Greene," Daryl grumbled with a head nod by way of a greeting.

Beth didn't respond. She was still pissed that he had dragged her back from her alone time in the woods yesterday. So she began walking upstairs to change and gather her pack for the run, but she was still in earshot when Morgan started a conversation with the hunter.

"Rick told me you're goin' on the run today… He trusts you completely and you're great with his girl… I was hoping you could keep an eye out for Beth while you're out there," Morgan's request made Beth stop on the stairs. She wanted to see what Daryl would say.

"She's doesn't need anyone to watch out for her," Daryl grumbled and she heard a dish clank as he pulled out leftover meat from yesterday.

"I know she doesn't, I know she is strong. She's been taking care of me for a long time. But Beth gets…" there was a pause while Beth knew he was searching for the right word. "…Reckless. And she still has things to learn."

Beth knew that _reckless_ was his way of avoiding telling Daryl her secret. Her inability to feel fear was something that only Beth and Morgan knew. Morgan would keep her secret. The silence in the kitchen stretched on and Beth couldn't help but wonder what Daryl thought about what Morgan asked.

"I'm not sure it's the best idea for me ta' be the one that looks after 'er," Daryl responded.

_Why is he either following me or avoiding me? Why wouldn't he be the best one to look out for me? It seems like he's already been doing that. _Daryl was such a mystery. Maybe going on the run with him would help shed some light on why he was so weird.

"Rick told me about how you got her outta that prison, how you two survived on your own… and everything that happened after. I still reckon you're the best one for the job."

_What the hell is Morgan talking about?_

She knew that the prison had been wrecked, Morgan had seen that before he left Georgia and he told her as much. But she didn't know that Daryl had gotten her out.

_And what happened after the prison fell? How long were we alone? _Beth didn't even know the timeline, or how much time had passed between leaving the prison and her getting shot. Or how she got to the hospital where Dr. Edwards and Kyle had originally met her.

Beth was suddenly furious with Morgan. Why hadn't he told her about all the stuff he'd learned?

Looks like he was keeping more than just her secrets.

A long time passed before Daryl promised, "I'll keep an eye on everyone." She heard Judith ask Daryl for more cereal. He gave it to her, even though the general rule was that people were not allowed seconds due to food rationing.

It was clear the conversation between Daryl and Morgan was over, so she finished creeping up the stairs to get ready to go.

First, she was going on this run.

Then, it was time to find out what the hell was going on with Daryl Dixon.

/

Daryl had just finished throwing the empty bins in the back of the van when Maggie and Glenn arrived at the cars. Maggie was looking upset and Glenn seemed to be pleading with her about something.

"I hate staying behind while y'all go out there and do all the work. Spending days not knowin' if you're comin' back. I want to go—" at this, Glenn cut Maggie off.

"No Maggie. You can't come. You're more than 4 months pregnant," he hissed exasperatedly.

"Glenn, I'll wait in the car. This way at least I'll know what's going on," Maggie pleaded.

Daryl tried to not listen in to their conversation. He banged around in the car and clanked tools unnecessarily under the hood in attempt to drown out their voices. However, this was hard to do when they were the only three people on the street.

"And what if there is a herd and we can't get back to the car? Or what if we have to run? What if we come across people like the Wolves again? You can't handle any of that in your condition," Glenn's voice was consoling and soft, but still vehement. Daryl had never heard another voice like Glenn's and he idly wondered if that was how Glenn's parents had talked. Stern yet caring. It was significantly different from how his father had ever spoken to anyone, it was even different than how Rick talks to his kin.

Maggie still looked like she might argue, but Glenn grabbed her wrist softly. "We've all got jobs to do. My job is to get supplies and your job is to take care of you and the little one," he finished with a small rub of Maggie's stomach.

The fight dropped off her face and she kissed him, "Okay. But you better come back safe."

"Daryl, you'll look after him, right?" She raised her voice.

_Why does everyone always ask me to take care of people? _he thought. First Beth, and now Glenn. He would have been watching over all of them anyway but it added to the pressure knowing that he's promised others that he would bring them back safely. Sometimes, nothing could be done. Sometimes, accidents happened.

Out loud he just said, " 'Course I will."

A few minutes later, Tara and Sasha showed up and tossed their own packs into the van. Next, was Beth and Lucky… and Spencer. Daryl watched the pair walking together and Beth was actually laughing. Not the tight-lipped chuckle he had seen since she'd been back, but throw-her-head-back laughter that was so musical it sounded like bird song. It made his heart ache to hear such a familiar sound echoing from her. During good times, the prison had been filled with her laughter at evening dinners with the family or mornings when she had Judith. The monster in his chest was back now, and it roared its head at Spencer. How was Spencer—who didn't know Beth—able to make her laugh like that? Daryl wanted to rip him apart in jealousy. But luckily Glenn interrupted before he could do something he regretted.

"We ready to go?" Glenn asked as Spencer and Beth came into earshot.

Daryl watched as the easy smile on Beth's face turned into a hard, fearless mask. It was time to get to business.

"Yeah, we're ready. Who's drivin'?" Beth asked as she opened the door of the van to allow Lucky to hop inside.

"We're takin' two cars, that way we can grab as much as possible from the hospital. It's far out there so I don't want to have to go back for a second trip if we can avoid it. Beth, you'll drive the lead car and Tara will drive the following car. It will be a long trip so everyone else should try to get some rest. Daryl and I can drive on the ride home," Glenn stated, morphing into a leader before his eyes.

It always impressed Daryl to see how easily Glenn slipped in and out of leader mode. At home, when Rick was in charge, Glenn was perfectly content to follow Rick and support the group. But whenever he was needed, he instantly snapped into the executive position and it suited him well. It never went to his head, like it had to the Governor, but he also never shied away from it, like Daryl did. Over the last 5 years, Daryl had grown to respect Glenn in a way he never would have guessed when the dorky pizza delivery guy rolled up in an RV in Atlanta.

"I don't think that's the best idea…" Beth said blatantly. Everyone stopped as they were getting into the cars.

"Why not?" Tara asked as she hung her upper body out of the driver window.

Beth glanced around before admitting, "I don't know how to drive that well…"

"What do you mean? I've seen you drive a hundred times," Daryl interrupted, coming around Rosita to face Beth.

"Maybe I did… but I don't know anymore," she explained simply, shrugging. "Morgan taught me, but we haven't found many cars that work to practice."

He was speechless.

_She forgot how to drive? How is that even possible? _

He should have realized this; she had forgotten everything and everyone else so why not how to drive?

_What else did she have to relearn?_

This question was pushed out of his mind when Beth interrupted the prolonged silence, "So… anyways. Spencer can just drive and I'll just navigate."

"Okay, yeah," stuttered Glenn, "Let's go. I want to get there before 4. I'll ride with Beth and Spencer."

Daryl had a surge of uneasiness at the thought of letting Beth and Glenn, the two people he had promised to take care of on this trip, go in a different car. But he let it slide, knowing that it would be weird if he protested this.

The drive to the hospital went off without a hitch. Daryl tried to get some sleep because outside the walls it was never clear when you would get another chance to rest. He knew that searching the hospital could take all night, they could be driving all night, or they could end up literally running for a full day like after the prison fell. However, Tara kept needing to swerve or break to avoid things in the road so sleep eluded him. They'd been on the road for hours before the city came into view. The lead van maneuvered through the streets and they ended up on the fourth floor of a six-story parking garage. Tara and Spencer angled the cars in a way that allowed easy loading and easy escape.

When he got out of the car, his back cracking, his eyes immediately went to Beth. She was stretching out after the long drive. Daryl couldn't help but stare at the small ribbon of skin that peaked out between the top of her jeans and the place where her shirt had ridden up. Even though she lived in the room across the hallway from him, he still wasn't accustomed to seeing her and each time it still made his heart stop.

_Not the damn time to get all starry-eyed. I've gotta stay focused, we can't lose anymore people_, he chastised himself.

Beth was explaining the hospital layout to everyone on a crude map she'd drawn on the back of an old car insurance paper she'd gotten from the glove box.

"Lucky, Beth and I will go in first to scout and make sure it's clear. Tara, Rosita and Spencer bring in the bags and grab whatever you can. Daryl, you bring up the rear. I want the path back to be free of walkers so we don't have to drop everything we came for," Glenn stated matter-of-factly.

There was a murmur of agreement from the group. It was a smart plan—quietest weapons in the front and back while giving the less skilled fighters, the ones who use guns, the task of filling up the bags with meds. Glenn had definitely been on too many runs in this lifetime.

They separated and began moving in a formation. He watched as Glenn and Beth disappeared into the dim hallway, Lucky was in front of them silently padding along with his ears perked. Daryl wrenched his gaze away from them and surveyed the parking structure. Nothing moved and there were no sounds, so he relaxed ever so slightly.

After a few minutes, Beth came back around the corner at the end of the hallway and waved the rest of them inside. Daryl hesitated before deciding to leave the door propped open. It was a solid, soundproof door and once he closed it, there would be no way of knowing what would be on the other side when they came back. He followed the group down the corridor that was scattered with papers, hospital gowns, overturned cots, open cupboards and shattered computers. This kind of destruction was only possible from live humans. It had been searched. But Beth plowed on with confidence in her stride. This did not worry her, which made him wonder where she had hidden the medications the first time she came here. There were no dead walker bodies in the hospital, which was a comfort because it made him think that this hallway had remained sealed off after Beth and Morgan had left several months ago.

When they got to the labor and delivery ward, there was a large set of doors that blocked their path. The hackles on Lucky's back stood up and Daryl could hear the faint noises of walkers roaming around inside. A slam on the door and ear shattering growling told him the dead had sensed them too.

Beth swiftly hopped over the counter and searched for something under the desk.

"Still here." She produced a key with a wicked grin. "Y'all ready to go in?"

"What?" Tara hissed in a panicked whisper.

"The meds are hidden inside the clinic," Beth said as if it was obvious.

"We can't go in there, we have no idea how many there are. It's too dangerous," Rosita insisted.

"There's twenty-six of them. And those fears are exactly why we did this," Beth stated as she slid over the counter towards them again.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Tara said, now using her annoying cop-in-training voice.

"We hid all the meds safely inside a room in there. Then we set up a boom box to lure walkers inside and locked the door behind them. Figured this would scare off most people and keep the meds hidden in case we needed to come back for them. Since it's the labor and delivery unit it only has one exit, these doors here—" she motioned with a crick in her neck towards the doors where they could hear thunderous groaning "—which used to be monitored so no one could steal a baby. We found the key and locked it before leaving."

"Brilliant!" Spencer exclaimed after a brief moment of silence where the rest of them took in the extent of their long-term plan. She smiled another one of her old, brilliant smiles at his praise.

"So I figure we can take them all out no problem. Open just one door and let them slip out in small groups. Spencer and Tara, brace the door. The rest of us can take them down one-by-one," Beth instructed confidently.

Everyone looked at Glenn as if to get his approval for this new plan.

"It's our only option right now and it's a good plan," he confirmed. After a beat he added, "Besides, it's labor and delivery, if there's something for the baby I've gotta get it."

Daryl was sold. They were already much better off than when Lori had given birth to Lil' Asskicker but things could still go bad. He knew that lots of women died in childbirth before "modern" medicine and now they had been thrown back into a time without any of those amenities. The more "modern" accommodations they could get Maggie, the better off she'd be.

So they got into a formation and Tara turned the key in the lock. Four walkers immediately flooded out of the door. The four fighters—Rosita, Glenn, Beth and himself—easily took out one each using knives and Glenn using a baseball bat. The trouble was that now more walkers had piled against the door, drawn in by the creaking of the door when it opened the first time. Through the slim window, Daryl saw at least fourteen against the door or coming down the hall towards them.

"Quick! Open it before they all pile up!" Daryl shouted.

Spencer responded and edged the door open. Walkers filtered out and Beth made noises in order to keep them coming towards the fighters and stay away from Tara and Spencer braced against the door. Nine of them had squeezed out before they could push the doors closed again.

Daryl rammed forward and plunged his knife into temples of the dead. He counted three down on his account and he was just pulling his knife out of a skull when he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder.

Then there was a whoosh of air so close that it ruffled his hair.

He thought it was the walker's breath but as he turned around Daryl saw the walker was already falling to his feet with an arrow sticking out of it's eye. Beth had backed down the hallway and had her bow poised. Rosita yanked her knife out of a head and the growls stopped in their part of the corridor. All nine of them were still on the floor, three with arrows in their head.

"Move back, we don't want to be tripping all over these ones," Glenn directed as he wiped some black ooze off of his face.

Beth moved forward and grabbed her arrows, but Spencer hadn't been paying enough attention and he'd already opened the doors. The rest of the walkers spilled out, pushing so hard that the door swung all the way open and pressed Tara and Spencer between the door and the wall behind it. Beth was too close, and the greedy, snapping mouths went straight for her before she could even stand up straight. Daryl's heart picked up, he couldn't reach her. The walker was only a step away and he was 20 feet down the hall.

So he turned the knife in his hand, putting the blade between his thumb and forefinger, and tossed it.

It spun three times before embedding into the skull of the walker so hard that the force knocked it to the ground. Beth glanced over at him with a surprised look. Then there was a ghost of a smile that she shot at him before she swerved and charged into action. She grabbed his knife out of the walker's head and killed one with it before skirting backwards, pressing herself against other door where the walkers wouldn't see her as they streamed out towards Glenn, Daryl and Rosita. She used this vantage point to kill the walkers from behind, getting a couple with the knife before they all were in the hall. Then, she moved on to her bow. Killing them from behind as they made their way towards the rest of them.

Daryl fought off the ones that came near him using his crossbow to smash their skulls, as Beth still had his knife and there was no time to reload his crossbow. He kept his eyes on the others, trying to make sure everyone was safe. And after some amount of time—seconds and minutes were meaningless—the hallway was still again. Now the only sound that echoed was the ragged breaths of the living.

"All right. Now, let's get those meds for your pregnant wife," Beth stated simply looking at Glenn.

/

A/N: I'm so sorry, I know I promised you a fight between Beth and Daryl, but the chapter got way too long so I split it into 2. I will post again really soon since it is mostly done!

Next chapter is fast moving: some fights, some people get separated…

But there will be some SERIOUS conversation after the run now that Beth has found out about Daryl &amp; her being alone! What will Daryl tell her? How will she take the news?


	20. Left Behind

A/N: Sorry it took me so long to post. I was in shock and recovery after S6 E3. **I will **NOT** post any spoilers to this**

Companion song: Break Stuff- Limp Bizkit

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

**Please review, you wonderful people are the motivation that keeps me writing! **I'm now a few chapters ahead and I CAN'T WAIT to share them with y'all ;)

/

**Chapter 20: Left Behind **

_How the fuck does she know that?_

No one had actually told Beth that Maggie was pregnant yet. They'd all agreed that Maggie should be the one to tell her whenever she was ready. It was sister business. So how did she know?

Glenn's face displayed the shock that Daryl was feeling.

"Beth… how did you…?" Glenn's question died out before it was finished.

"I may not remember anything… but I'm not blind. I've seen how all of you coddle her and how she touches her stomach when she thinks no one's lookin'," Beth's words were blasé but there was a softness in her face that Daryl hadn't seen in over two years. It was the same look he used to see whenever she'd been at a table with Hershel and Maggie reading the bible together. But then it was gone again as she said, "It doesn't matter how I know. We're wasting time standin' here talkin'. Let's get the supplies and get outta here."

Daryl snapped into action following her into the labor and delivery unit. Beth led them directly to an exam room at the end of the hallway, the door had been closed and he imagined this was intended to keep the walkers out of the secret stash. There was a sink and some tools scattered around the counter. The sheets on the bed were ripped and askew. Daryl expected her to open the cupboards that lined the wall above the old sink. But instead she bent over and pulled the exam table away from the wall. She opened the drawers under the exam table, drawers that had been hidden against the wall a second ago. Comparing both sides of the bed, it would have been impossible to guess that there were drawers on the opposite side. Inside there were at least 30 different plastic pill bottles complete with labels, numerous glass bottles full of various liquids, syringes, medical tools and IV bags. Everyone else in the room was excited, whooping. He heard Rosita and Tara actually squeal with delight.

The meds they were now shoving into packs would undoubtedly cure the sepsis patients back home and, given that they were in a labor and deliver ward, Daryl guessed there would be plenty of drugs to keep Maggie and the baby alive.

It was a treasure chest. A life saving treasure chest.

And suddenly he had the creeping feeling that this was not Beth.

He remembered her that last night in the funeral home. She didn't want to take all the food in the cupboard. She wanted to leave it there in order to help others—strangers or people she didn't even know were coming—even if it meant she went hungry. She was writing a thank you note in the damn apocalypse.

This woman, hiding medicine to save for herself, was not Beth. This was a strange monster that had been shaped entirely by the terrible world they lived in now. Daryl was disgusted by her in that moment, horrified by her selfishness. And he wanted to know why she did it.

"Why'd you hide it?" he demanded, not even bothering to keep his voice low.

"In case we needed it…" she responded as her eyes left the backpack she was stuffing in order to look up at him. In her voice it was obvious she was confused by his sudden rage.

Everyone else in the room went dead silent. They all knew Daryl well enough to recognize when he was about to lose his shit.

"And what if someone else needed it? What if y'all had died and this shit stayed hidden forever? People are dyin' everyday and you're hidin' the only things that can save people!"

She blanched at his accusation.

"Daryl, hey. Come on man," Glenn soothed as he stepped forward.

"No! I wanna know what the hell she was thinkin' being so damn selfish!" he yanked his arm from Glenn's grasp and walked towards Beth, getting in her face.

Lucky stepped in front of Daryl and the dog's hackles went up along the entire length of his back. This was a sign that he needed to cool down before he got a mean bite in the ass.

"I think a pregnant lady and some of _your people_ with sepsis might disagree," her voice was the opposite of his. He was shouting but hers was quiet, it was somehow scarier like the calm before the storm.

"And how do we even know this is all of it? Could be lyin' to keep more for yourself!" Daryl knew he was being stupid and ungrateful but he couldn't stop now. His anger had boiled over and couldn't be contained.

"I'm trying to help y'all!" now she had exploded too. Lucky picked up on her anger and barred his teeth at Daryl but Beth wasn't going to let Lucky fight her battles, "Sit Luck."

"And what about everyone else?"

"Who exactly should I be helpin'? The rapists and murderers left in this world?" she shouted.

"There are still good people, Greene." At this, she let out a derisive laugh and it broke his heart.

"Don't be so naïve, Daryl. There's no good in this world. Everyone is a killer, and had hearts full of hate. Since I woke up 2 years ago I've known only bloodshed, malice and chaos," she was fired up now, getting back in his face too. "I know you look at me and you just see the dead girl you used to know… but I'm not her."

He paused for a moment. In that instant, while she stood yelling at him, she looked and sounded so much like she had outside the moonshine shack. In fact, it was so similar that he waited briefly to see if she'd gotten a memory back.

But she didn't, her face showed no sign of realization or recognition. She just continued to seethe and the fire that blazed out of her singed his hope into ash.

"Yeah, I can see that," he almost whispered now.

Then he turned and stalked out of the room.

A few minutes later, the others began trickling out into the hallway having gotten all the supplies. Everyone just made quiet small talk and they headed off in the same direction they'd come in from the parking garage. When the doors to the Labor and Delivery clinic opened however, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Beth tensed as well, her muscles coiling like a snake ready to strike. They glanced at each other, their blue eyes meeting in the dim hallway. Lucky crouched down and stared ahead, listening to something that none of the humans could hear.

The air had been stale and dusty when they came in an hour ago. Now the air was disturbed and it had a distinctly sour smell.

_Walkers. _

But there was something more. Daryl couldn't place it but he wasn't going to stick around and try.

"Glenn!" he half whispered and half yelled. "You and Tara, you've got the backpacks, go back to the car. Beth, take Lucky and go in front to cover them, you'll be the quietest. Rosita and Spencer, stay with me to cover our backs."

The others hadn't even noticed that there was anything wrong but they responded to Daryl's commands.

"You sure? Why can't we all stay together?" responded Spencer.

"We need to have layers… in case walkers break through. Still have to get the meds home, even if…" Daryl's reasoning drifted off. What he didn't say was even if some people die, they still had to get the medicine back to Alexandria.

"But if we stick—" Spencer continued to protest.

"Ain't got time to argue with you, pretty boy." There were snarls that could be heard echoing down the hallway now, but it was too quiet to tell which direction they were coming from.

Beth gave Daryl a small nod and then quickly jogged down the right corridor towards the exit with the dog trotting ahead of her.

"We'll get the car warmed up for you, man." Glenn said as he hitched the backpack up on his shoulder. Tara and Glenn took off after Beth.

"Let's go. Watch the corners," he commanded after a few beats had passed. His remaining two companions followed him, heads swiveling to see a 360 view. The growls were louder now. They made another right before coming to a fork in the hallway. Walkers were on them faster than even he could react. They came from the left side of the hall and there had to be at least 40 of them in a huge group.

Daryl snapped and began smashing skulls. He heard the grunts of effort from his companions that told him they were doing the same.

"Can't take them all on!" Rosita shouted over the racket. More could be seen coming up the corridor towards them now, drawn by the noise of their fighting. Daryl was still trying to push to the right, going the direction of the car as much as possible. However, they were getting turned around by the surrounding walkers pushing them every which way. Daryl could just barely see the exit sign that signaled the parking garage.

"Gotta make a run for it before those get here! Don't bother killing, just push through on three," Daryl instructed as he killed a seventh walker in less than two minutes.

"One," he said while he plunged his knife into the temple of a female walker in a tracksuit. "Two," as he yanked it back out. "Three," he shouted and he shoved several walkers out of way as he making a path for the trio towards the exit. He heard footsteps behind him, figuring it was Spencer and Rosita, but he didn't bother to check because he was focused on clearing a gap in the walkers on his way to the door. But then, as his hand clamped down on the handle, he heard a noise that made his stomach jump into his throat.

"Help," came a quiet shout, drowned in the growls of walkers. Daryl turned and saw through the flailing corpses, Spencer. He was at the complete opposite side of the hallway.

_Must've gotten turned around in the fight and went the wrong way, _Daryl realized._ God dammit_, he cursed in his head.

"What're we gonna do Daryl?" Rosita huffed at his side as the butt of her gun connected with a walker's head. It crumpled at her feet but was quickly replaced by another one chomping at her.

Spencer was still fighting. Using a machete to hack away at walkers, but he wasn't making a dent. There were at least 60 dead monsters spanning the hospital hallway between them and he had no way of knowing if more were going to come spilling out of the corridor.

Daryl spared one moment to wonder; _Where the fuck did they all come from?_

He counted only 5 bolts with his crossbow, and Rosita had her gun with a full 14 bullets in the chamber. They both had knives, and Rosita was a scrappy fighter. But getting through to Spencer, would require using a different way in and out of this maze of a hospital. What if they all got trapped trying to get Spencer out? What if the others, Glenn, Beth and Tara, needed them on the road home to get the medicine to Alexandria? What if going after Spencer meant that Maggie lost her baby?

The hunter, with a heavy heart, grabbed Rosita's shoulder and pulled her out of the door into the parking garage. He got one last glance at Spencer barricading himself into a clinic with thick fire doors.

Echoes of the growling could still be heard once they got into the cement parking lot. The rest of the group was already packed into the cars, ready to go. The sun was almost finished setting, only a sliver of orange was left in the dark sky.

Beth turned at the sound of the door slamming. It only took a second before her face fell and she asked accusatorily, "Where is he?"

Daryl couldn't talk under her scrutinizing gaze.

"We were swarmed in there!" Rosita responded a little hysterically.

"What do you mean? Walkers?" asked Tara, hopping out of the car.

There was a pounding on the door behind them in response to her question.

"Yeah. Felt like there was a hundred of them, came on us faster than a damn tornado," Rosita continued.

"Where did they come from?" Beth inquired. Daryl could see her mind working. She knew the hospital, she said Morgan and her had stayed there for more than a week, and Daryl guessed she was thinking about routes they could have taken or doors they could've come in.

"Came from the last fork on the left," he finally spoke up.

"Probably attracted by all of your damn yelling!" Rosita shouted at Daryl and Beth.

"Placing blame isn't going to help anything," Glenn said trying to calm Rosita down.

"Don't be ridiculous. That many of them couldn't have all gotten up to level 5 from the ground floor without being lead there. The stairwells are too crowded and they were all closed." Beth reasoned in a condescending tone.

"What are you saying?" Glenn asked in the stunned silence that followed her words. But it was obvious to all of them what Beth meant before she outright said it.

"Someone must've propped the door open and lead them up to the 5th floor," Beth concluded with an anger pulsing in her eyes.

This was followed by a ringing silence between the group, penetrated only by the repeated fists slamming on the door that Daryl and Rosita had just come through.

"We've gotta get out of here," Daryl said as he began herding everyone back into the car.

"No," the little blonde protested while everyone else solemnly jumped into their seats.

"What do you mean, Beth? If Daryl says we've gotta go, then we've gotta go," Glenn said from the driver's seat, looking concerned at Beth's stubbornness.

"I'm not leavin' anyone behind," Beth stated gravely.

"There is probably 100 walkers in that hallway by now. How the hell do you think you're gonna get to him all alone little girl?" Rosita shouted at Beth.

"Seen worse odds before," she shrugged. "I'll figure it out."

No one responded to this.

"Daryl, tell me which clinic you saw him go into and leave me a car if you can spare it," she requested.

"Can't leave ya here alone," was his only response.

"Don't matter who is comin' or goin' but we've gotta make a move quick… these doors won't hold up forever," she nodded towards the entrance to the hospital where a visible dent could be seen protruding out of the door from the walkers pounding on the other side.

"Glenn, get those meds home. We'll be right behind you," Daryl said without breaking eye contact with Beth. There was no way in hell he was letting her go in there alone. He didn't care about their fight. He didn't care that she was risking her life for another man. He left her alone once before and she'd been taken and eventually shot in the head. He wouldn't leave Beth again… even if it wasn't really the same girl.

"Daryl… you sure about this?" Glenn replied tentatively.

"People need that medicine. Your family needs it. But she's right… I can't leave anyone behind again." Glenn nodded slightly and Daryl knew that he understood.

"See you in a couple hours. We'll wait for you at that old bakery we passed just outside of town in case you can't get back to the car," Glenn said before starting up the van. Tara and Rosita piled in, shaking their heads in disbelief.

As the van disappeared around the corner of the parking garage, Daryl finally turned to Beth.

"So let's hear your brilliant plan then Greene."

/

A/N: Beth and Daryl on their own setting out on a hero mission. Will they succeed? Who will make it back to Alexandria? How did those walkers get into the hospital? When will Daryl finally accept this new Beth? Find out soon! :)

Thanks for reading! Please review! Every message/favorite/review/follow I get is like a perfect surprise party in my day!


	21. Rescue

A/N: Hey lovelies! Thanks for the support everyone! To the new followers/favoriters, Welcome! To the loyal long-timers, THANK YOU! Special shout-out to:

Companion song: "Six barrel shotgun" by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

**Please review, if I get 25+ reviews on this chapter I will post again on Friday!**

/

**Chapter 21: Rescue**

Twenty minutes later, he was staring at a knotted bed sheet in his hands.

There were fires in going at either end of the hallways downstairs. Beth had thick handmade sparklers in her backpack that she'd lit and thrown into the two windows that she knew had been broken out on the fifth floor. It had been unbelievable to see the arm on her as she'd chucked the flaming sticks into windows from the ground. He wondered vaguely if she'd played softball in the old world, but he'd never know because she couldn't even remember.

Now, they were standing in a room on the sixth floor and they were contemplating the best way to shimmy down in order to retrieve Spencer.

They didn't even know if he was still alive, but they were going in after him anyway.

"Think we could try the elevator shaft?" Daryl asked.

"Not close enough, it'll open up into walker territory down there," she dismissed.

"Windows?" He didn't much like the idea of her dangling by a sheet out of a sixth story window… but he didn't know what other options there were.

"No. Windows in hospitals don't open far enough to get through and I don't have anything sturdy enough to break it. Morgan and I had to shoot the other ones out," she responded. Her eyes were closed, clearly concentrating on finding a solution.

"You're gonna have to lower me through the vent," she finally said.

"What vent?" Daryl asked.

"The air ducts. Only problem is that they won't support my weight. You'll have to lower me down so I don't fall through."

"And how are ya gonna get back up? Spencer sure as hell isn't going to fit through one of those," he stared at the tiny vent that she was looking at now. The opening looked like it was smaller than a microwave.

"We don't have to get back up. There is an emergency exit stairwell in the orthopedic surgery clinic that leads directly out to the parking lot. It's only one hallway over from where Spencer is trapped. I'll go down there, get him and we'll fight our way back to the staircase. Meanwhile you take Lucky and meet us with the van outside."

"And what if there's too many to fight your way through?"

"Then you just take Lucky back to Morgan for me," she patted him once on the head and the dog actually whimpered as if he understood what she was saying.

"There's gotta be a better way," the hunter protested.

"Maybe there is, but we ain't got time to figure that out now. I don't know how long those flares will last," she was already tying the sheet around her waist.

He was defeated. She was right, they didn't have time to debate this, they had to move. But he hated the idea of not being the one to be in danger, not fighting against the walkers. However, as Beth squeezed into the vent—shoulders just fitting with less than an inch of space on either side—he knew that there was no other possible way. So he gave in to her.

"See you outside in ten minutes," Daryl said gripping the sheet. There was nothing else to say. There would be no goodbye because he _would_ see her, alive, again.

She let herself hang and he felt the fabric tug, cutting into his palms. He braced himself and hand-over-hand he lowered her down.

As she descended into the vent, the light from the small flashlight that sat on the floor next to him flashed on her face. It was soft and girlish still, youthful somehow even after all the horror she'd seen. Above all she looked determined. In that moment, he realized that this Beth was the same one he knew years ago. She was slightly different, more scars and had a harder exterior. But she was the same exact woman who was unwilling to leave their family behind after the prison fell. She was the same one that would tramp into the hordes of walkers and death to save people she didn't even know were alive.

He fell in love with her all over again while she succumbed to the darkness; her stubbornness, her selflessness and her optimism.

/

The only indication that she was out of the vent was the sudden change of air. It was pitch black and there was an unmistakable stagnant quality to it that said she was in a room that had been undisturbed for years. This feeling was comforting because it made her feel certain that there were no walkers nearby.

"I'm good," she whispered up the vent in the hopes that Daryl would make his way out to their meeting point and get the van ready.

She heard Lucky whimper in response.

Beth pulled the knife out of her sheath and swiveled in a slow circle. Her eyes were fairly adjusted to the dark after only a moment. She needed to be in the dark; a flashlight would impede her movement and weapons, plus the light would only draw walkers towards her. She'd landed in a patient room and it was empty of almost everything except a dusty bed. Silently, she made her way over to the door. Through the slim window in the door and saw several walkers shuffling around the hall. There were numerous at each end, near the windows where they'd thrown the flares and Beth was happy she'd saved those. Morgan and her found a book ages ago on how to make them and it looked like that particular page of the book paid off. However, there were still several snarling monsters in front of one door directly across the hall from her.

_That must be where Spencer is hiding. _

_Gotta move quick if we're gonna get out before they all converge on us again, _this was her last thought before she swung the door open and her mind went blank.

It was clear, this unclouded space in her head was focused on only the task at hand, the walkers between her and the person she was trying to save.

She had left Kyle to die alone, getting torn to pieces by walkers. Beth was unwilling to leave Spencer alone, to starve or to get over taken by the walkers piling against the door. No one else would die on her watch.

Arrows fired out of her bow as fast as she could manage, walkers crumpled in heaps on the floor. Not a single shot went astray, all of them were kill shots. She ran out of arrows but continued forward without pulling any out of the heads. Beth yanked the door handle to the clinic where Spencer was hiding. It moved slightly but the door didn't actually open. Glancing in the window she saw that Spencer had barricaded it.

"Spencer!" she shouted into the gap in the door.

She turned back around to face the hallway. Yelling his name had definitely attracted the walkers to her location, as expected. However, there was no way around this. How else would she get Spencer back out there?

Beth stood with her back pressed against the doors as walkers came at her. Continuously she stabbed her knife in their heads. She could already feel her arms growing sore and she had lost a concept of time. The only method of counting the minutes was through the bodies piling up on the linoleum. She'd almost given up on Spencer, thinking he'd passed out or killed himself or shot out a window and climbed down. She began pushing her way back into the hallway preparing to exit out the elevator as discussed with Daryl.

_We'll have to find a way to get directly into that clinic if we're going to find him_, the blonde thought as she retreated into the mass of walkers.

Squelching noises could be heard under the rumble of growling as she pulled arrows out of skulls as she ran towards the elevator. There were at least 8 back in her quiver when there was an ear shattering crash at one end of the hallway. She could see that a window had smashed and there was a can of smoke spiraling in circles making a high-pitched hiss.

An itching sensation crept over her skin like insects. She knew she should be afraid. It was in the opposite direction of where Daryl should be waiting, so it must have been another human who threw this canister. Also, she had no idea what was in the can—could it be poisonous?

Beth wouldn't stay long enough to find out the answers to these questions. At least the noise was distracting numerous walkers away from her and out of her path to the elevator.

As she turned to run to the elevator doors, she saw a glorious sight.

Spencer.

His head was visible just inside the window. She motioned frantically for him to come out. He was confused and there was a look of fear in his eyes, she recognized it as the look prey got in their eyes the moment before an arrow struck them. But he seemed to trust her and after a few seconds where she imagined he was moving the barricades, the door flung open.

"Get to the elevator!" she half spoke, half whispered as she killed two more walkers in her way.

Once at the elevator, the blonde grabbed the machete from his hand and shoved it into the tiny gap in the middle. He stood like a deer in headlights, and Beth couldn't blame him since she'd taken his weapon. But it only took a second to pry the doors open, without power they couldn't be held shut. The elevator shaft was bigger than she expected, there would be no way to reach the cord in the middle and slide down. Beth immediately changed the plan.

There was a light at the bottom and Beth knew Daryl must have been waiting at the bottom.

"Daryl!"

His head popped into view.

"What the hell are ya doin' up there? Hurry your ass up," he shouted back.

"Can't get down this. Get the hell outta there quick, meet us at the front entrance," she glanced over her shoulder. Spencer was fighting off the walkers that had been attracted by her yelling.

"Why do I need ta get out quick, Beth?" she could hear the concern and skepticism in his voice from six floors down.

"Gonna send the walkers down instead," she replied before turning back to face the ones coming at her in the hallway.

She heard Daryl's curse echo through the elevator shaft, and then there were pounding footsteps. She knew he was running. The walkers, no longer distracted by the sparklers or gas, were coming their way now because of her yelling down to Daryl.

"Go on either side of the opening, lure them over here and push them in. Kill them if you have to but save as much energy as you can. There's a lot of them," she instructed Spencer as she shoved the first one through the open door behind her.

Minutes ticked by. It was just a blur of snarling and snapping teeth, she couldn't even hear the thud of the walkers falling down the elevator shaft anymore. There was no end in sight though. Monsters were still pouring out of one of the side hallways.

"They're still coming," Spencer had noticed too and she saw the terror flash in his eyes. "We've gotta get out of here, I'm already fading."

Beth knew she had to get him out of there; he was getting sloppy from exhaustion and fear. She already had to yank walkers off of him three times because he wasn't watching his left side.

"Alright. Let's run." She grabbed his arm and pulled him along the corridor away from where the walkers were coming. Beth knew the hospital layout well. They could get out this direction but it would take a lot longer and she wasn't sure what else they would run into.

Beth felt the familiar feeling of being watched, like she had laser beams boring holes into her neck. Someone was leading all of these walkers into the hospital. There was no way all of them would have made it up to the fifth floor alone. She hoped without much faith that they would get out of the hospital without running into whoever was orchestrating this attack.

It took them 10 minutes to get through the maze of the hospital corridors, even in an all out sprint. But Beth remembered the layout well enough to avoid the path where walkers were coming from. When she saw Lucky and Daryl in the car, already running, right outside the front door she almost sighed with relief.

As soon as Spencer and Beth hopped in, before they even shut the car door, Daryl peeled out.

"What the fuck took ya so long?" Daryl shouted without taking his eyes off the road. He was swerving around the walkers and abandoned cars that blocked their way out of the city.

"Ran into more than we bargained for. They just kept coming. There was hundreds of them," Spencer explained. "I don't know how all of them found us!"

Daryl glanced back at Beth and Spencer. She knew that they must be covered in blood and guts, her shirt was ripped and noticed that Spencer's backpack was missing.

"Someone led them up there. Must've had the hospital staked out, waiting for people to come in looking for meds…" Daryl's answer reflected her own thoughts.

"Why would someone do that? Sending walkers after us?" Spencer mused.

She pictured the people who she met before, the men who wanted to kill or own her like a slave. None of them had any reasons. Some people just liked to kill. Some people just wanted to destroy things simply because they could.

"Some men just wanna watch the world burn," Daryl responded gravely. Then the two men looked at each other and shook their heads lightly like old friends. Beth was clearly missing some joke but she didn't bother to ask for an explanation because Daryl was right. Some people were just evil; there was no reason behind it.

A few minutes later they were getting onto the highway, headed on the wrong side of the street since the road out of the city was blocked by abandoned cars, when Daryl suddenly swerved off the road.

"What the hell?" Beth shouted as she fell into Spencer's lap on the floor. They had been next to each other on the back seat from where they had jumped in at the hospital. Lucky in the front seat slammed into the dashboard. Spencer and Beth were a tangle of limbs on the floor for a moment while the car came to a stop in the grass on the side of the road. He stared up at her. Beth saw his pupils dilate and she felt his breathing quicken from where their bodies were pressed against each other. She tried to push herself up but there was nothing but Spencer on the floor of the car so she just ended up with her hands on his chest. She felt a blush creep up her neck and felt her own pulse quicken. She had never been this close to someone, except when she'd been fighting.

Finally, Spencer put his hands on her hips and pushed her up into the seat again.

"Sorry there was—" Daryl had turned around to apologize but his voice died. Beth looked over at him, tearing her eyes away from Spencer, and saw an unfathomable reaction on Daryl's face.

He looked hurt.

Daryl had clearly seen Beth and Spencer on the floor and she watched as he observed her flushed expression and Spencer's now slightly dazed grin.

His eyes flicked to Beth's and after a moment of watching the painful look in his eyes, it was replaced by a fierce scowl. Beth would have described it as jealousy but that couldn't be right.

_Why would he be jealous? _She puzzled but she decided that it didn't make any sense.

"Strip of nails in the road. Someone doesn't want us getting out of the city," Daryl grunted.

_Focus, this is life and death. No time to get distracted by guys_, she scolded herself.

Daryl opened the driver's door and got out. His eyes scanned the edge of the trees, crossbow poised. Spencer looked terrified.

"What happened to the others? Do you think they're okay?" he whispered to Beth in the car.

She didn't respond, instead she opened the door, clicked her tongue at Lucky and he jumped out of the car after her. Beth and Lucky surveyed the opposite side of the road, with Lucky's ears perked. After a few seconds, Lucky's hackles went up, fur bunching and he slunk down into a hunting crouch as he let out a quiet growl, so low that no one other than her could hear it. The blonde turned and ran silently across the road back to Daryl. She grabbed the back of his shirt and shoved him towards the car.

"We gotta go," she hissed.

He immediately snapped into action. They worked seamlessly together, reacting instantaneously to one another's voices, not questioning their judgement and they all piled into the van where Spencer was still sitting.

Daryl pulled away carefully, not wanting to get stuck in the dirt on the side of the road. Once he got on the road, he put the pedal to the floor.

"What's going on?" Spencer asked from the backseat.

Neither Beth nor Daryl answered from the front, Beth was watching the tree line intently and Daryl was focused on the road ensuring that there were no other hazards in their way.

It was pitch black outside now, the sun having set while they were in the midst of escaping the hospital. They sped on for another 10 minutes. Beth had no idea how fast they were driving since the speedometer in the car was broken but then they came across a familiar car. It was the van that the other's had left in. It had completely flipped, the roof of the car now smashed against the road. Beth's mind went into overdrive as their own car came to another screeching halt. She flew out of the passenger seat and bent into the upturned car. Beth could feel Daryl hovering behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to see his back towards her while he watched the street and forest, protecting her. This, the protectiveness and the partnership, came natural to him she noted again in the back of her head. She wondered about why this came so easily for them, it took her and Morgan months to work together so harmoniously.

Her musing was fleeting however, because as she looked around the upside down car and she realized that there were more important things to worry about at the moment.

/

A/N: Ahhh! Daryl finally accepting that this is really Beth! I know y'all have been waiting for that. Let's see where it takes our favorite couple ;) First, we've gotta get through this issue with the car accident… What's in the car? Who will make it back to Alexandria?

Thanks for reading! Please message/favorite/review/follow, it makes my heart happy. If I get at least 25 reviews this week on this chapter I will post again on Friday.


	22. Donor

A/N: Hey Bethylers! I didn't get 25 reviews on the last chapter but I decided to post anyways because I was so touched by one guest who commented so positively on every chapter. To the mystery commenter: thank you, your kindness made my week!

Additional shout outs go to: Shy40, Reignashii, aysha27, .75, SarahCullen4, Avaleigh1, .94, DarylDixon'sLover and mrskaz453

Companion song: "River of Darkness" by Kalli

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

/

**Chapter 22: Donor **

The van was empty.

There weren't even any bags; which either meant Glenn, Rosita and Tara had gotten away safely… or someone else had come and collected the packs. That was when she noticed the blood staining the passenger seat. There was enough that Beth was concerned. But there wasn't a deadly amount.

"Empty," she muttered to Daryl as she stood up. "But someone's hurt, not sure how far they could get."

She kept her voice low, almost whispering directly to Daryl. He turned his head slightly and cast a quick, furtive look into the van.

"Shit," he expelled. "Gotta find 'em and get outta here."

Spencer was just now finding his footing to get out of their car.

"Where are they?" he asked so loudly that it made her cringe.

"They're gone," Daryl replied angrily.

"What?! They left after—" Spencer was almost shouting and Beth rushed towards him and interrupted him with a hand clamped over his mouth.

"Yes, they took off after the accident... either by force or by necessity. And if you don't shut up, we might be next," she seethed in his ear.

The normal care-free face of Spencer darkened with shock and fear.

_Good, maybe if he's scared he won't be so damn loud_, she thought even though she did feel a small tinge of regret at being so mean to him.

Beth looked back at Daryl who was searching the ground near Glenn's van. He knelt down to get a closer look at something and then stared out into the dark forest. As if he felt her eyes on him he turned and met her gaze. Then the archer nodded his head and Beth went to his side. She noticed what he saw immediately. There were tracks leading away from the van and into the overgrowth that surrounded the road,

The problem was that there more than 3 sets of prints.

There were about 15 sets and it was obvious from their unruly pattern that they were walkers.

This was actually a relief. Walkers were much easier to deal with than people. Walkers were predictable, easily distracted and instinctual. Humans… they were the real worry. They were calculated, erratic and had the potential to be altogether more soulless than the walkers.

"We gotta find 'em quick. She's losing blood and more will be attracted by the smell," he reached around into his pack and pulled out a flashlight. Then his eyes flicked towards Spencer where he stood in the road. She could predict Daryl's thoughts. He was wondering what they were going to do with Spencer.

"Can't leave him alone," Beth muttered answering Daryl's unasked question.

Daryl nodded, "Yeah, I know. Gonna slow us down though."

"Come on Spencer," she raised her voice just loud enough for him to hear.

Beth, with Lucky one step ahead, led the way. Using Daryl's flashlight to see the tracks through the forest, and partially relying on Lucky's nose, Beth piloted their little group onward. Daryl was bringing up the rear, watching her back yet again. There was no moon that night, the sky covered by ominous clouds so even the stars couldn't provide any light. They were running blind except the beam of Beth's flashlight. Occasionally it illuminated a dead walker or a stray puddle of blood.

Lucky pulled up short after several minutes of running. He was once again detecting something, smell or sound, that was out of her limited human range. She flipped the flashlight to shine through her shirt, which dimmed the light considerably. But it was still enough to see the hair on the back of Lucky's neck go up. He didn't growl, which meant they were close. Lucky never growled if walkers were close—the dog had long ago figured out that making noise was a last resort.

The trio kept following the trail but there was a new rigidity within the group. Each footstep was intentional and as silent as possible, Spencer's still as loud as thunder claps in the silence that surrounded them. After another few minutes Beth could hear the faint snarling of walkers. They got close enough to see what was going on.

Standing in a clearing was a small wooden building. Not quite a house, maybe it was an old cabin. In any case, they circled around and Beth noted a few pertinent pieces of information. First, all the walkers were gathered on only one side of the building. Second, there was only one door. And it happened to be on the same side where the walkers were.

Spencer was holding the flashlight now, even though it was off, so Beth and Daryl could both have two free hands on their bows. They had come to a stop behind the walkers again, this way they could see if any of the monsters noticed the human search party.

Daryl leaned in towards her, pressing his lips near her ear and whispering so as to not be overheard by walkers, "Go around back. You'll push in through that small window in the back and I'll keep a look out. Spencer can set a fire back here to lead some of them away while we get the others out."

His breath on her neck was distracting for a moment but she turned her head to whisper in his ear now in response, "Are you sure it's okay to leave him alone? Should I send Lucky with him?"

She could feel Daryl nod his head next to her. After one big breath, one that wasn't fresh air but instead was Daryl's scent of leather and outdoors, she stepped back and moved over to Spencer. Beth relayed the plan to Spencer; he had to bend down quite a bit to allow her lips near his ear. Then she told Lucky. And she spent one short moment marveling at her dog's ability to understand her. Daryl and Beth crept around the side of the cabin while Spencer walked the other way, Lucky looked at Beth one last time before trotting after Spencer.

The two archers moved in sync, footsteps silent while they both looked in opposing directions. They waited until orange flames burst into life, close enough that they could hear the crackling of the wood. Growls were changing direction and had grown louder. The walkers had taken the bait. Daryl did a lunge and motioned for Beth to step on his leg in order to hoist herself into the small window. She clamored onto the floor and hit the ground with a small crash, landing on her shoulder in the process. But she stifled her squeak of pain and stood up quickly.

"Beth?!" came a shocked whisper from the darkness.

A light clicked on and Glenn's face came into view. He was covered in blood; his hands, his clothes and even his face had dark streaks on it.

"Are you all right?" she asked as her eyes flicked around the remaining space of the cabin. The banging sounds of walkers were still audible outside the front door. She could see that photos and a clock had fallen off the wall from the force of the pounding hands.

"Yeah, I'm fine. This is all Rosita's…" he said dejectedly as he turned to lead Beth to the bed where Rosita sat. The sheets around her were stained in a pool of blood. Instinctively, Beth knew that this was bad. When she calculated the amount of blood they'd seen in the car, along the trail of the forest and what surrounded Rosita now… she knew that the woman was in huge trouble.

However, there wasn't a whole lot they could do now.

"Everyone—get your stuff ready. Tara, you're going to have to go back out the window. Help Daryl clear whatever walkers are left at the door, there's no way we can get her up through that tiny window like this," as Beth gave instructions she kneeled on the floor next to Rosita. There was a shard of glass sitting on the bed next to her and as Beth looked at the six-inch gash in Rosita's side, she could guess what happened.

_They pulled it out… those idiots. _She thought while internally cursing at them.

Glass from the windshield must have embedded itself into Rosita in the crash. But instead of leaving it in her until they could get somewhere safe, they pulled it out. This would have only made matters worse and it helped explain why there was such a large amount of blood. Beth whipped her backpack off of her shoulder and dug around quickly. Her hands touched on the duct tape and she pulled it out and immediately pulled off a strip. Using a clean pillowcase as gauze, Beth quickly taped Rosita's abdomen. It would help keep the pressure on the wound and would free up her hands.

When she finally looked up at Rosita's face it was paler than any human face Beth had seen before. Rosita normally had a healthy tan that made her glow… but now she looked like a corpse. However, she was still conscious. This was convenient since it meant she might be able to walk but the pain must be unimaginable.

Tara was back over her shoulder in a minute and began helping Rosita up from the bed.

"No, you go. Help Daryl!" Beth begged and she motioned for Glenn to come over. Tara hesitated, looking like she wanted to argue, but something in Beth's commanding tone must have persuaded her so she pushed a chair under the window and after a brief look outside she heaved herself out of it.

There were a few drawn out moments while Beth and Glenn half-carried and half-dragged Rosita to the front door. She could hear the sounds of growling becoming quieter, signaling that there were less of them. Daryl and Tara were taking them out one by one. She pushed Rosita's weight onto Glenn and stepped away from the pair to look outside. Opening the door a fraction of an inch, just enough to sneak a peek, she saw that there were no more walkers on the porch. There were still sounds of fighting nearby so Beth was confident that Daryl and Tara were still occupied. However, if they wanted to get back to the car, they would have to go now before Rosita passed out. She nodded at Glenn and flung the door open with her knife poised in a position to stab any monsters that were in their way. In only one second, she saw Tara and Daryl fighting in the clearing. Spencer and Lucky weren't in sight but there were three flames at various spots in the trees, so it was clear that they'd done their job.

Since the coast was clear, Beth raced back to Rosita's aid. Glenn and her pulled Rosita through the trees along a parallel route back to the car. Glenn either was letting Beth lead or didn't realize that they weren't following their own tracks backwards. There were walkers all over the woods and their trail was covered in fresh blood. In some ways, the moving corpses had grown more sluggish as the years went on… but in other's they had become superhuman. Their sense of smell was one thing that Beth had seen was improving in the creatures over time. Maybe the lack of food made them more attuned to a nearby food source. She didn't want the puddles of blood along their first path to attract the monsters.

The archer and the officer-in-training caught up to the group in no time. It wasn't hard since Rosita kept stumbling on the underbrush and her own feet, occasionally pulling Glenn or Beth into the falls.

Daryl took one look at the predicament they were in and hung his crossbow over his chest. He squatted in front of Rosita and she clung to his back.

Beth stopped in her tracks, her shoulder suddenly lighter without bearing Rosita's weight.

_Piggyback_, she thought.

The word came to her head even though she didn't know where it came from. In the two years of her life that she could remember, she'd never seen one nor read about one. But somehow, Beth knew exactly what it was.

_**It's a serious piggyback.**_The phrase swirled inside her brain in a familiar husky voice. It was as if someone had whispered it in her ear.

_Where did that come from? What the hell was that? _

In that moment, she thought she should be afraid. Beth didn't understand what was going on. And there was a voice in her head that wasn't her own. That couldn't be normal. There was a distinctly happy and light feeling that had swelled in her chest with that voice though. Her heart was in complete contradiction to her mind that was reeling with confusion and doubt.

The rest of the group had started moving forward and Beth was still frozen.

But Glenn looked back at her and whispered "Beth, come on!"

She snapped and began trotting after the rest of the group, lifting her bow off of her back again now that she wasn't carrying Rosita. Daryl hitched his head at her and she knew that he was asking her to take the lead. They were running now. There were growls on their heels in the darkness, walkers just outside of the reach of Tara's flashlight. But they were close to the car. As they approached the road, Beth was gripped worried about Spencer and Lucky. She expected to hear the engine rumbling already, they were supposed to be waiting in the car ready to go.

When they came out of the trees her heart felt lighter. Lucky was sitting with Spencer in the car. Beth knew that Spencer must've closed themselves in to prevent Lucky from coming after her, she could see him practically itching to get out of the car and race to her side.

Beth flung the door open, Spencer started the engine, and Daryl gingerly set Rosita in the seat. Everyone else piled in after her and Spencer peeled out.

The drive felt excruciatingly long while Rosita lost more and more blood. The tension was palpable but Spencer was driving as fast as the road allowed with obstacles and overgrown plants covering it. Each time he looked over his shoulder at her pallid skin and the dark stain that had saturated the pillowcase tied to her stomach, the engine revved even more. The car shook as he pushed it as hard as it could stand, they were only a few miles away from Alexandria now and every second could make a difference in Rosita's life.

/

He wondered if the screaming was a good sign. Growing up there was a lot of shouting in the house. Angry bellows from his dad and terrified or pained shrieks from his mother. But the noises, heard from inside his closet where his mom hid him during the worst of the drunken nights, always signified that they were alive. When it went quiet was when the small boy would creep out of his darkened room. He feared the silence of his mother meant she had finally succumbed to his father's violence. He'd secretly hoped that the silence meant his father had finally died, drunk himself to death or stumbled over the shit strewn on the floor and taken a terrible fall.

The screams meant living, and the silence meant death.

So he tried to remain hopeful about the wailing he could hear coming from Rosita in the hospital room.

He was slouching in a chair in the waiting room, his back aching from how tightly his muscles were holding. After dropping Rosita and the others at the clinic, Daryl had driven across Alexandria to tell their family of her condition. It spoke to the urgency that Daryl used the gas to get across the city instead of running. Now, all of the family sat stoically in the mismatched chairs in the living room of the hospital house.

His eyes were drawn to Abraham who was fuming mad, head full of steam as he paced around the room. Eugene was watching the closed door of the operating room with red eyes. Tara openly sobbed into her hands and Glenn consolingly patted her back while Maggie stroked his other arm. Michonne and Carl sat together and there were some whispered passed back and forth between the two. Rick had come and gone into the operating room, after a minute he walked back out and mumbled something about needing to check the walls. Judith was at home asleep while Sasha watched over her. Carol was seated to Daryl and her hand fluttered like she kept considering reaching over to touch him. Spencer sat farthest away, looking miserable and out of place. He knew he wasn't really part of their close-knit family so Daryl could imagine that he would feel like an outsider intruding on their group's grief. But he also knew that Spencer was a good guy and so he wouldn't leave someone just because he felt uncomfortable.

Beth was staring absently at Daryl. He could feel her eyes on him and he tried to avoid staring at her, busying himself with studying the others instead and only glancing at her in his periphery vision. She was looking at him, but she wasn't really seeing him. He could tell that she was distracted, like she was on another planet. She had one leg pulled up in the chair with her chin resting on her knee. Beth was covered in blood, her shirt was ripped in two places and her hair was sticking up in all directions. Lucky was curled up on the floor, lying on Beth's other foot half asleep. It was clear that he wasn't going to take the chance that she would get up and walk away without him noticing. Although, Daryl guessed that this would be impossible. Daryl had known Lucky for more than a week and he already knew that the dog never fully slept, and his big ears were constantly perked up searching for dangers. He somehow looked both threatening and cuddly. Morgan sat stoically next to her, at one point he leaned over as if to say something to her. But she noticed the movement and stared over at him before Morgan could speak. An unspoken conversation passed between the two of them. It reminded him of how he could communicate with Rick using only one look. Beth just shook her head ever so slightly and Morgan visibly sagged in his chair.

Before Daryl could think about what had been said between the old man and the blonde girl, Rosita let out an earsplitting screech.

Abraham lost it, throwing an empty chair across the room while shouting, "Why the fuck hasn't doc given her any pain meds?"

Michonne stood as well and walked over to him slowly, like she was approaching a rabid animal. "I'm sure she has. It will take a while to kick in."

"It should've been helping already!" He countered.

Rosita had only been in the room for about 10 minutes, but Daryl guessed that it felt like 10 hours to Abe.

"The doc's good. We've gotta trust her," Maggie said soothingly from where she sat.

"That morphine is expired, it will have lost some effectiveness and potency. The shelf life can be up to 15 years though," Abe looked flabbergasted, this was something that he would have expected Eugene to say but instead it came out of Beth's mouth. "It will work, but it will just take a little longer to kick in."

The shock seemed to abate his anger and he sat back down.

After a few more silent minutes, Beth's prediction came true. Rosita's screams subsided and the Dr. Ortiz came out of the room a few moments later. The doctor looked harried and she was covered in Rosita's blood just like Daryl, Glenn, Tara and Beth. He tried to calculate how much blood she had lost—in the cabin, the car and on the doctor—but he shook off the thought whenever he figured out that she probably had lost more than she had still.

Dr. Ortiz confirmed as much when she asked, "Does anyone know Rosita's blood type?"

People glanced towards Abraham and Tara, but they just looked at each other and shook their heads guiltily. Slowly all of them turned to face the doctor again, silently asking what the next step is.

"Does anyone know their own blood type? Is anyone a universal donor?" She implored.

Rick, who had walked in only a moment ago, spoke up, "I'm A+ and so is Carl."

"AB," replied Eugene simply.

"Been in the hospital enough times to know I'm B-," shrugged Carol. A few others listed off their blood types or their reasoning for not knowing their blood types. Daryl didn't know his of course, because he couldn't remember ever going to the doctor in his life.

"I'm B…" Maggie responded in a flat tone, but she glanced over at her sister from where she was tucked behind her husband. "…But Beth is O-"

/

Her wide blue eyes immediately shot up to Maggie's green ones.

"What?" Beth squeaked timidly.

"Your blood type is O-"

Then, it hit her like a train. She had a connection to her past. Not just to a time before she was shot, but to a time before even that. When there were no walkers, when she probably lived in a pretty white house like the ones in Alexandria. Maggie was her sister. She could tell Beth about their family, how she used to spend her time before it was consumed with only matters of survival. _Did we have other siblings? What were our parents like? Where did we used to live? What did I like to do? Was I going to school? What were holidays like at home?_ She had seen so many pictures of holidays but she had never celebrated one.

Maggie was her chance to discover so much about herself, her family and about life before the world turned into this horrible mess she knew now—the world she only learned about from books and stories. The "normal world" or the "old world" as Morgan called it. That was not normal for her, it wasn't anything more than faded pictures; this walker-filled world was her norm. But maybe… maybe if Maggie told her stories… she could remember something from their old life.

She vowed to get closer to Maggie. They were sisters. Beth hadn't made any effort to get to know her since she'd been in Alexandria. Although, Maggie had ignored her too… so maybe Maggie didn't want to talk to Beth.

_Is she avoiding me?_ Beth wondered to herself. _What did I do?_

"Beth?" Morgan said softly at her side. From the look in his brown eyes, it was obvious that this was not the first time someone had said her name.

"Yeah, take whatever you need Doc," Beth stood up and walked into the surgery room. They hadn't asked for her blood and she knew intrinsically that the family wouldn't ask her to give up anything, but she would do it anyway. She was a universal blood donor, apparently, and she would do whatever she could to help save one of the few good people left in the world.

/

A/N: PIGGYBACK RIDES! Anyone excited about that little tidbit? More to come lovelies ;)

Thanks for reading! Please message/favorite/review/follow, it makes my heart happy and my fingers dance across the keyboard!


	23. Answers

A/N: I'M BACK!

Hello loyal followers, happy 2016! I am sorry it has been so long since I've updated. I have just been enjoying the holidays and have had a MAJOR mental block with this chapter (see more in the A/N at the end).

Companion song: "Blue Eyes" by Cary Brothers

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

/

**Chapter 23: Answers **

"Why don't ya go talk to your sister?" he asked her. She balked for a moment. She hadn't really even considered asking Maggie. They were sisters, but for some reason she felt that it was Daryl that had her answers. Then, after overhearing Morgan and Daryl talking, she was absolutely certain of it.

"They're not answers that she can give me," Beth told him.

"What the hell could ya possibly want to know from me?" his voice was raised now, hackles going up.

This reaction confirmed what she already guessed. He knew things. Things he didn't want to tell her. And she wouldn't back down now.

"I want to know how I got shot." It wasn't a question, it was a demand. She hopped out of the little wooden chair she'd been waiting in. Beth got right in Daryl's face. He seemed stunned for a moment, and then his face hardened.

"Beth… it won't do any good to—" he began, but she cut him off. There was no way he was getting out of this.

"Don't you dare try to tell me that it's pointless to relive the past. You can say that for yourself but it not _reliving_ the past for me. Because I don't even remember living it the first time," her voice was stony, but it almost cracked at the end.

Daryl must have heard it because his face softened a miniscule amount.

The crinkle between his eyebrows grew more pronounced and then he set his bag that he'd been fumbling with on the ground. The bed creaked as he sat on it and leaned against the wall behind him. He got as far as he could away from her, creating distance even in the small guest room. So many seconds of silence that passed between them that she thought she could feel the Earth revolve around the Sun.

"You were in the hospital in Atlanta… a friend was… in trouble and you stuck up for 'im," Daryl didn't elaborate further. Which only served to piss her off.

"Who was my friend? Who killed me? Why was I in the hospital?" she fired the questions rapidly, unsure which one she wanted answered first.

"Her name was Dawn, she was some sort of cop that locked everyone in that hospital. Kept 'em scared and chased 'em down when they tried to escape," she could see the anger flaring up in him now as he talked. His voice grew rougher, colder and his eyes shot daggers into the wall where Beth was sure he was picturing the scene. "Noah was your friend, you helped him escape and then you saved him when Dawn tried to trap him again."

He clammed up at that point.

Beth sat back down into the chair, her back slouching against the wooden slats. Her legs had started to go numb. Daryl made her seem like some sort of tragic hero. Getting shot to save a friend from a terrible fate.

But she did note that he ignored the last question about why she was in the hospital to begin with.

"Noah's from Virginia, isn't he?" she asked softly, her whisper travelled across the dark room. Beth was putting the pieces together. If Noah was from the hospital, Kyle and Dr. Edwards would have known him. That was the friend they had been taking her to.

She glanced up and saw Daryl nodding in confirmation.

"He left Atlanta with y'all after I died?" she asked in an attempt to get all the information.

Again, the only encouragement from Daryl was a small nod of his head. His somber attitude was foreboding.

"He's not here… So did you guys take him home?" Beth thought that she already knew the answer to this inquiry, but she was hoping her instinct was wrong.

There was a long moment of tension before Daryl finally answered, "We tried."

When he looked up and met her expectant gaze he sighed and reluctantly continued the story, "His neighborhood was already overrun. There was no one left when we got to Richmond. The walls had been knocked down and everything useful had been looted already." Daryl's voice was on autopilot. It was a story that had been repeated, and explained before. "He came to Alexandria with us, survived all the way across the fucking country… but then got killed on the first run he went on."

He shook his head and Beth heard him mutter something under his breath. She didn't bother asking him what he'd said.

The silence stretched on and Beth tried to think of what question she wanted answered next. There were so many that had swirled around in her head for the last two years but now her mind was blank. She would come back to how she got in the hospital, she needed to know the answer to that but she'd let Daryl think he'd wormed out of that one… for now.

"What happened to the rest of my family? Did… did you know them or were they already…" she let her question trail off.

Morgan was able to tell her a lot about how the apocalypse started, about the old world and so many other things. However, he could never tell her anything about her family and her personal history.

"Never met most of your family," he said but there was hesitation in his voice.

_What is he holding back? _She wondered as she narrowed her eyes at him skeptically.

Daryl noticed the glare and he caved, "I saw some 'em. As walkers." He wiped his hand over his face, looking exhausted.

Her breath caught in her throat but she managed a croaked, "Who?"

"Your brother and your mom," he said solemnly. "I don't know their names or anything. You'll have to talk to Maggie about all that." There was a mean edge now, but there was an undertone of pleading she realized. He really didn't want to be the one informing her about her dead family.

"So the only ones left were me and Maggie?" she wondered how her and Maggie survived on their own at the beginning while the rest of their family turned into monsters.

"No… There was a guy named Otis, his wife Patricia, your…friend Jimmy and... your dad." Daryl said between long pauses.

"All dead now," she said without question. People didn't just leave. They either died or they turned. She knew what happened, she didn't need details.

Daryl stayed still in his position on the bed, arm resting on the knee he had pulled up on the mattress with him. The sound of Lucky's nails clacking on the hard wood floor of the hallway penetrated through the closed door. Lucky was her family now, and had been since the moment she saw him under that porch in the snow. This thought was soothing because Beth knew Lucky and those memories couldn't be taken away from her.

"Will you tell me about them?" she requested in such a soft voice that she wasn't entirely sure that Daryl would be able to hear her across the little room.

But he sighed and she knew he heard her. He shook his head and looked as if he was about to refuse her request.

"Please," she begged and she tears welling up in her eyes. It was absurd. She didn't cry, she just wasn't a crier. She hadn't even cried when Kyle died. But suddenly, she felt so overwhelmingly empty. It was as if the bullet truly left an empty crater inside her, only it was huge. So much larger than a bullet. The hole inside her was gaping. In it were all the memories that had been stripped away from her, in it was all the family she'd never know, all those pictures that would have been hanging on the walls of her home just like all the other houses she'd looted or slept in.

Blinking the moisture away and swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat, she told herself not to be so weak. Especially in front of a man like Daryl, so stoic and strong. When her eyes traveled back up to where he sat on the bed, she knew she'd been caught because his eyes were skirting away as soon as he noticed her glanced up at him.

He picked at a scab on his finger and began, "Well Patricia was real nice. Didn't talk to her much because I never came inside the house. But she helped save Carl when he'd been shot and she helped cooked dinners for everyone. Otis… well he got killed when he went out to get medical supplies. I guess it was kinda his fault we needed the supplies, but if he hadn't shot Carl none of us ever woulda gone to the Greene farm in the first place. Poor Glenn probably would've died a virgin," the smallest of smiles perked the edge of his lip up but then he seemed to look guilty and turned serious again. "I never really hung out with Jimmy. I think ya musta known him from school or something... he was your… uh," he sputtered and then remained silent for a beat. "A herd passed through the farm and there was a fire. Lost a lot of people, Patricia died getting pregnant Lori out of the house, Jimmy died trying to save Carl and Rick."

Beth sat contemplating the new information. She had lived on a farm with her family. It sounded like they all died for good reasons.

But they all died to save this new group and suddenly she was pissed.

"So you're saying all of them died to save your asses!" her voice had risen and Lucky whimpered and began scratching frantically at the door. Beth took a calming breath and reminded herself that it was nighttime and she was in someone else's house. "Stop it Luck," she commanded quietly. The mutt heard her, however, and the sound of nails on wood stopped.

"Yeah, they did. Everyone who's alive still, is alive because other people sacrificed themselves," Daryl's response was serious and unflinching but his voice was small, he was clearly ashamed at this truth.

"And you just let them die?" She asked, calm one again. At least she was finally getting some answers.

He just nodded his head, his hair falling over his eyes so his face was consumed by shadows.

"Then how am I supposed to trust any of you?" This was an important question. This was a test. Everyone Morgan and Beth crossed paths with over the past 2 years, boasted of how trustworthy they were, even when they were thieves, rapists and murderers.

Daryl's answer abated her anger short though, "Shouldn't trust anyone." She stared at him in disbelief but he wouldn't meet her eyes, instead he kept staring at the bolt in his hands. "Not until they really prove it to ya." He looked up at her and her breath caught under the weight of his blue eyes.

This, somehow, was the perfect answer.

He wasn't pretending. He wasn't making crazy promises. He wasn't telling her to trust him because of what they had years ago. Daryl was allowing her the time she needed. In his own way, he was telling her that he would prove that she could trust him.

The hunter looked down and the spell was broken between them. She found her breath again, sucking in a huge gulp of air. Beth tried to regain her train of thought and after several more clearing breathes she managed to come up with another question.

"What about my dad?"

Daryl sighed loudly, it came from deep inside him as if he was pulling air from every limb in his body. He set the bolt aside and gave Beth his undivided attention. She could tell this was important to him, it seemed like he really wanted to get this part of the conversation right.

"His name was Hershel and he was the best man I've ever known. Met him first when he saved Carl after he'd been shot. In the old world, he was a veterinarian, but in this world he became our doctor. Saved a lot of us, stitched us up, hell he even stitched strangers up. He was just a genuinely good person," there was a smile on his face now. Not a real smile, like most people, but the slight tugging of his lips that characterized a Daryl-smile. "And a real tough sum-bitch too. He was bit once, we were clearing the prison and walker that we thought was dead ripped a big chunk right outta his calf. So Rick chopped the bottom half of his leg off to stop it from spreading. There was so much blood and he was quiet for so long—" he cut himself off and seemed to realize that this topic might upset her.

"Yeah, lots of blood and guts. I get it, I'm not squeamish. Go on," she prompted.

"Anyway, he survived in this damn world with only one leg and some crutches. Still managed to be the most moral person out of all of us. Even when The Governor came to kill us all he still wanted to work out a solution so everyone could live," his smile faded and his eyes were unfocused. His forehead creased, with anger and regret.

_That's how he died,_ she realized. _He died saving other people too._

"Who's the Governor?" She asked, pushing through this new awareness, she wanted the full story.

"A dick who had too big of an ego, wanted everyone to fall in line with him, created an army of other dicks who came to steal what we had at the prison," Daryl summarized aptly.

"He killed Hershel… my… my dad?" It was almost a statement, she knew it from the way Daryl looked when he first mentioned the Governor and now she just needed his confirmation.

Daryl just gave one slight nod.

"Where is he?" She asked in a growl.

"Woah there, ripper. He's nothing but a trampled patch of grass at this point. Michonne took care of that," he said with another small grin.

Beth felt herself relax back into the chair again, "I knew I liked her."

Her mind was reeling now. Full of information that Daryl had given her, mostly she was thinking about her father. The fact that he had one leg seemed to itch at something in the back of her mind, like a dream that left a ghost of an impression inside her eyelids, but that faded each time she tried to recall it.

After several minutes of silence, where Daryl picked at the holes in his pants, he finally spoke up, "So, uh, was that it then?" He said clearly trying to dismiss her from his room and get out of answering any more questions.

Beth actually smiled at him; his discomfort told her that she was getting close to the good questions. "You're not getting away that easily, Mr. Dixon." But then she turned serious again, her smile sliding off her face, "When the Governor came to take what we had at the prison, is that when it fell?"

He grunted in the affirmative.

"What happened after?" she asked, staring directly into his face now, waiting for any type of reaction. And she got it.

/

He felt his jaw snap shut at her question. This is exactly what he didn't want to discuss: what happened after the prison.

_Shit. _

He still hadn't decided what to do. Should he lie to her? This didn't seem right. If he ever wanted to earn her trust back, he couldn't start out by lying. Besides, this was Beth. He couldn't lie to her. She'd always been able to tell when he was lying, she could spot the cracks in his stories from miles away. Should he tell her everything? This didn't seem like a good option either. How would he even begin to describe everything that had passed between them in those weeks on the run? Plus, it wasn't going to win back any trust to tell her that he was the reason she was abducted and taken to the hospital where she got shot.

_You're outta time now, jackass. Gotta say somethin'_ he thought as the seconds of silence ticked by.

"Everyone scattered. Ran with whatever was on our backs. The whole place was crumbling, tanks and grenades had ruined it. Plus, all the noise and flames attracted so many walkers the place was nearly overrun before all of us got out," he tried to say this with his normal nonchalance but he was nervous. He desperately hoped that she wouldn't ask a follow up question.

"And then?" she said, raising one eyebrow.

"Eventually we all met back up at Terminus, this train station that was supposed to be a sanctuary," he felt his blood boil just thinking about all the innocent people those cannibals had lured into their trap.

"But I wasn't there was I?" she still knew how to read him like a damn book. Beth must have known he was hiding something.

"Nah, you were already at the hospital," he responded, still evading her real question. He silently begged her not to ask the question again. She asked him already how she ended up at the hospital and Daryl hadn't answered her. He doubted he could blow it off a second time.

But she was merciful, sort of, and asked instead, "How did I get outta that prison, Daryl?"

Her blue eyes were full of fire now. She wasn't going to take his bullshit anymore. He'd seen her like this before, when she'd yelled at him outside their moonshine shack. Only then, she was a full-fledged, uncontrollable wildfire. Now, she was more contained, like she was reining in the fire inside herself. Daryl knew the feeling well, having spent years suppressing the rage he felt. He wouldn't dodge her anymore.

"We got out together," was all he could bring himself to say.

She narrowed her eyes at him skeptically, "Just us… why?"

"Everyone was supposed to get out on the bus. I was busy dealin' with some assholes in a tank and you ran back in to save the kids. When you got out, I was the only one left so we just ran," he said with an overly casual shrug. Daryl didn't think it was a good time to mention that he had been in the process of going in after her when she came running out.

Her eyes remained skeptical, and he forced himself to meet them so it didn't look like he was hiding something. It didn't convince her though, she was still glaring at him.

"All right… And what happened after the prison?"

Should he tell her all the details? Hiding pressed together in the trunk…Her first drink… Her teaching him how to be a good person without even knowing it… Burning down the cabin… Her singing in their little home that last night…

Damn. He did not need to be thinking about all those weeks with her. He'd tried for years to keep those memories stuffed in the back of his head.

Daryl couldn't tell her all that actually happened. It would freak her out and chase her out of Alexandria even faster. He knew she was still planning on running. But he thought that maybe her curiosity would keep her here. Maybe she'd stay longer if he kept her wondering.

_God damn evil plan ya got to trap little miss jailbait over there, brother_. He heard Merle's voice pop into his head. _It's damn near perfect!_

He tried to ignore thoughts of his brother's approval. If Merle would have approved, it probably wasn't the best idea. But he did it anyway.

"Lots'a stuff," he said as he stood up. "Beth, ya lost a lotta blood today and neither of us have slept for two days. You should go and get some rest."

He grabbed the door handle, pulled it open and stood to one side. It was an obvious dismissal and Beth's jaw dropped a little.

"That's all I get?" She seemed hurt and slightly angry.

"For now." One eyebrow lifted as he watched her eyes narrow again. "You gotta get some sleep, Doctor's orders. But we can talk later, I promise," Daryl didn't know what made him say this. But her face lightened at this promise, the anger faded and made way for a brief smile.

She stood up, pushed the little wooden chair under the desk, and walked over to the doorway where Daryl was still standing.

"Fine. I'll go to sleep now, but I'll hold you to that promise." She silently padded along the hallway to her room. Beth turned around when her door was open, he was still staring after her and for a moment he thought she was going to bust him for watching her. Instead she called him out on something else, "And next time I won't let you get away with those crap answers, Daryl Dixon."

Now he felt his own jaw drop, but she didn't catch that because Lucky swept into her room and she shut the door with a quiet click.

If he needed any further proof that this was still Beth, he just got it.

/

A/N: Ah! This chapter was impossible to write. Wanted to keep them in character (which I do NOT feel like I accomplished) and I wanted them to share without revealing too much… I am not totally pleased with it but it had been WAY too long without an update so I decided to just put it out there.

Hopefully y'all don't hate me :/

Thanks for reading! Please message/favorite/review/follow !


	24. Hold On

A/N: Hey y'all. I'll be honest with you, this chapter is not the best. I was very disheartened at the lack of response to the last chapter so I don't think I was all in when writing this one. Sorry… But get through this one because the next chapter is already planned and is GOOD. (:

Thank you to those who took the time to review the last chapter, I love and appreciate your love and appreciation: ReedusRocks, draegon-fire, soniabell, Reignashii, and especially debraskelchy and .75

Companion song: "Hold On" by Tom Waits

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

/

**Chapter 24: Hold On **

They were planning and talking, talking and planning, pouring over maps and speculating about who could have set those traps at the hospital. It was obvious that someone had led those walkers through the hospital, there was no possible way they could have found them on their own. Plus, the doors to the stairwells had been closed and if Beth remembered correctly, she had locked the main doors in that particular section of hallway. She told Rick as much and watched his eyes narrow in anger.

Rick, Michonne, Morgan, Abraham, Glenn, Carol, Beth and, of course, Daryl all sat in the library discussing the possibilities of who was responsible and why.

"So they led these walkers through the maze of the hospital… but why? They clearly didn't care about anything inside because if they did they would have just followed us in themselves and taken whatever we got," Glenn summarized.

Beth rolled her eyes, they had already been over this.

"They set those damn nails in the road to stop your car from leaving though. Must've done that for a reason. But you said that you didn't see anyone, right?" Abraham asked and Glenn nodded before Abe continued, "That would have been the perfect time to drive up and take whatever they wanted, even if people is what they're after."

Daryl and Beth looked over at each other. They both felt certain that there were actually people out in the woods, watching them. However, neither of them had shared that fact with the others yet.

Now was apparently the time, "There was someone out there." Daryl finally spoke up but he didn't move from his position where he perched on the windowsill. "Could feel them watchin' us when we were on the road."

Morgan glanced at Beth, she knew that he would trust her judgment over Daryl's since they just met him. So he asked her, "You sure?"

Beth nodded, "Luck heard 'em too."

Morgan was clearly satisfied with this answer. Knowing that Lucky had the most reliable senses out of all of them.

"So they're not after anything you had that night. But if they wanted to kill you or trap you, why not just wreck your car when you went after Glenn and Tara and Rosita?" Carol asked.

Beth saw Abe flinch slightly at the mention of Rosita.

She had a theory on this too but she didn't want to say it to the room. It was far too morbid. Her eyes were drawn to Daryl again, and from the dark look in his clouded blue eyes that they had come to the same conclusion.

"They're after something bigger. Wanted to follow you home," Michonne said, speaking for the first time since they'd started this meeting. "Same as The Governor."

Michonne was apparently on the same page.

The room got uncomfortable. Everyone turned angry and hard. Abe was the only one whose demeanor didn't immediately change. Beth knew that even Morgan had visited the prison after the Governor, since he knew where Rick had been staying. It said something about the brutality that had been left behind that even Morgan was affected. Morgan had never really told her much about what he'd seen when he went to track down Rick. Because the two of them never knew that it was her "family" that had been at that prison. He'd only ever told her that it had been overrun and was falling apart. Now, she thought she'd like to hear the full story. But she'd ask Morgan about that later.

"So they're comin' to fight. Either to take what we have or destroy it," Rick stepped out from where he had been leaning over the desk.

"We've gotta go out there, track them down and kill every last one them," Carol's voice was full of numb malice that Beth only felt certain it was Carol because she'd actually watched the older woman's lips form the words. Out of the corner of her eye, Beth noticed that Morgan's eyes widened ever so slightly and she knew that he was shocked that Carol could be so cold. However, none of the others were surprised—which only told Beth that her hunch about Carol had been right. That woman was a maniacal cougar wrapped in a deceptively domesticated house cat package.

"That's not a good idea. If we find them out there, it's on their turf. They had us cornered like rats yesterday. Spencer would have been locked in that hospital forever if Beth hadn't know the place so well and their trap out of the city… Rosita…" Glenn's sentence dropped off. But leaned forward in his chair and he found his voice again after a moment, "We can't go after them. It's a death sentence."

There were a few small nods around the library.

"So we just wait for them to come to us?" Carol scoffed. "Just like last time." Her words were filled with venom.

"No. This time we'll be ready. We will get prepared and we'll be expecting them." Michonne was equally as stubborn. "Chasing him was a waste and chasing people that we don't know anything about would be rash and foolish."

Beth watched as Carol pushed up out of her chair and moved towards Michonne threateningly.

"Letting them come at us is cowardly!" Carol was shouting in Michonne's face but she kept her calm leaning against a bookshelf and Beth couldn't help but respect her more for this. The older woman's voice grew cold and quiet like the moments of cloud cover right before a storm, "You let him come last time, you stopped looking and it got people killed." Her eyes left Michonne and flicked towards Daryl and then Rick. The glance was accusatory.

"Carol," Daryl growled from the corner.

"I won't sit by and do nothing," was her only response before turning and stomping out of the library.

Rick glared at the empty doorway, tilted his head a little and then said calmly, "We are not goin' anywhere. Ain't gonna lose this place like we did last time. We'll send scouts out to learn more about them," he nodded at Daryl and Michonne before continuing, "double patrols," he added with a look at Abe and Morgan before concluding with a two-fingered point at Glenn, "and get everyone on board with the escape plans. The rest of the Alexandrians should be staying inside, staying quiet and doing everything they can to conserve and prepare. You know your roles."

Everyone began to move immediately, rushing off to do the jobs that they knew so well. Beth stood, unsure of herself. She wasn't given a task and didn't know her place in the community like all the others did. But staying a beat behind meant she caught an interaction between Daryl and Rick that the others missed.

The men's eyes met across the room, Daryl had remained at his post in the windowsill, and the leader hitched his head in the direction of the door. Daryl's face hardened but Rick requested in a whisper, "She'll listen to you."

It was a request, Beth could tell as much because Daryl actually contemplated this before following his direction without any verbal response. The hunter snatched his crossbow off the floor while nodding and gruffly mumbled as he walked out the door.

Rick seemed to notice her only when the rest of the room was empty. He was standing with his hands on his hips, with a weight on his shoulders the size of a bus. When he looked up at Beth, he appeared to want to say something but he didn't even open his mouth. She let him off the hook by giving herself a job, "I'll go out with the scouts. Just let me know when."

He stared at her. His eyes burned into her, as if they contained a sixth sense that actually revealed someone's inner strengths and weaknesses. Whatever he sees in her must have been promising though because after an agonizingly long minute, Rick slowly nodded. Beth walked out of the door before he could change his mind.

/

She had been up in the second largest tree inside the walls for a few hours before someone came and found her. She expected Morgan to come for her, or maybe Michonne, or even Daryl. But instead it was Carl.

"You stole my tree," he laughed as he climbed up to a branch next to her.

"You didn't come here for the spot though," she replied with a smile.

"Yeah, Dad sent me to get you for dinner, he thought you should start comin' to dinners with everyone," Carl said sheepishly. She could tell that he didn't want to be the bearer of bad news. However, Rick had clearly made a concession for her—letting her go on the run and now assigning her to the scouting missions. So she decided that she would play nice and go to some dinners.

The pair shimmied back down the tree and headed home together. The weight of unspoken words grew heavier between them as they walked. As with most of her _"family"_ members she didn't pressure Carl to speak, but just waited for him to work up the courage for whatever it was.

Once the house came into view, he coughed awkwardly before asking, "Uh… Beth. I'm happy you're back. You were my best friend for a long time because we were the only kids around. I hope you decide to stay."

She glanced up at him in surprise. First, she never thought of herself as a kid. Age was meaningless in this world, especially considering that she didn't even know her real age. All she'd ever known was survival. And experience was more meaningful than the number of years someone had been around. Second, she was surprised that Carl too had realized that she was contemplating running from the safety of Alexandria. It hit her that even though she didn't know these people, they all seemed to know her pretty well. This comforted her because it made her think that maybe, deep down, she was in fact the same person as before her accident.

Unsure how to respond to him, she found herself asking more questions. It was as if her talk with Daryl last night had dislodged something inside her and made her finally curious about her past.

"Carl, how old are we?" she questioned with a small laugh at how absurd it was that she didn't even know her own birthday.

He laughed too. It was an odd laugh, deep like a grown man's but still with a care free air of a child. "Well, I'm 17 now. And you're 21. Although, your birthday is probably comin' up soon. I know it was in the winter sometime but you'd have to ask Maggie the exact day."

They began moving towards the house again, and with the second suggestion in only two days, Beth realized that she was really going to have to talk to Maggie soon.

/

He went to the funeral that evening but stayed on the fringes, watching everyone else mourn and staying out of sight. The group around the little graveyard was huge. People in Alexandria had loved Rosita. She was helpful in every aspect of their daily lives, on runs, on the wall, watching the kids, in the clinic and kitchens. People would certainly feel her loss and this was clear from the ample amount of tears being shed over the small mound of fresh dirt.

After Rosita was buried in the cemetery along the south wall, Deanna invited the town to her house for a wake. Daryl only went because of Abe. The man looked like a wreck. The bags under his eyes confirmed that he hadn't slept, and the glazed over quality in his eyes made Daryl think he was very close to losing it completely. He'd have to watch out for a mental breakdown—Abe got violent when he lost his lid, Glenn had told him about how he knocked Eugene out cold for hours.

At Deanna's house everyone wandered around, talking in subdued voices and throwing sidelong glances at Abe, Tara and the others. Daryl was standing next to Sasha, who was a perfect companion to these types of events because she stayed equally as silent as Daryl himself. He was finishing his beer and was just about to leave the wake when he saw Beth and Spencer enter through the back, kitchen door.

He stopped and stared.

The beer in his hand paused half way to his mouth. But he didn't notice.

Instead Daryl saw her brilliant smile as she laughed at something Spencer said. It was a genuine smile like he hadn't seen since she'd been back. This made him heart wrenchingly sad and also inexplicably happy at the same time.

"Wow, haven't seen her like that since the prison," said Sasha at his side.

"Yeah, I guess," Daryl replied tearing his eyes away from her. He had seen her happier since the prison, while they sat in a little kitchen eating food by candlelight. He wondered if she would ever remember that night.

"Do you think they've got something going on already?" Sasha asked with an undertone of displeasure and sarcasm.

He blanched at the thought of that and almost yelled at her, but then realized that Sasha was upset because she was jealous. No one else in the room seemed to have noticed Beth and Spencer together, but Sasha couldn't take her eyes off of the pair.

Daryl gave a noncommittal grunt to Sasha.

Spencer got Beth a drink, white wine, and a scotch for himself. Then, they moved through the crowd together and he followed her like the moon orbiting the Earth. The pair stood in the corner by the bookcase and Beth looked at all the books while Spencer chatted at her. She was still engaged in the conversation enough to continue asking him questions.

Daryl wanted to rip his eyes away, he felt like a creep staring at her. She had her hair in a haphazard bun and she was wearing the same black jeans she had on when he saw her in the airport, but now she wore a tight plain black t-shirt. It didn't show any skin, except for her tanned, toned arms, but it was so incredibly sexy it felt like he might as well have been back in the tiny trunk with her during the thunderstorm. The crossbow was still on her back and a knife in her belt even inside the house. Beth must have felt his gaze on her because she looked up and met his eyes. She had a scowl on her face at first, but then when she realized it was Daryl looking at her, she smiled a little. He credits this smile to their conversation last night.

Just then, one of the Alexandria locals, the teacher Miss Angela, began playing a song on the piano. It was subdued, as they were at a wake, but it was loud enough that the music rang through the entire house. It was an hour after sunset and they had already dimmed the lights as per Alexandria's protocol. Rick glanced at his watch with a furrow in his brow but seemed to consent to the music despite the late hour.

With the music making conversation hard, people either stopped talking or moved into tighter groups. Spencer and Beth were among the latter group. He leaned in and whispered something in her ear.

The grip on his beer bottle tightened, Daryl's knuckles turning white.

"I'm out of here. Going home to relieve Carl of babysitting duty," Sasha muttered. Chugged the last of her drink and slammed the cup on the kitchen counter with a final glare in the direction of Beth and Spencer. Sometimes, he and Sasha were so alike.

He was going to leave as well, but then a familiar song came floating out of the keys. Daryl heard the song only once before. It was in the prison… one of the last days that Merle had been alive.

Angela was singing quietly but he was remembering Beth's voice echoing in the cement walls, "They hung a sign up in our town/ If you live it up/ you won't live it down."

Maggie, who had been lounging on a couch next to Glenn and Tara, shot a look up at him. There were bags under her eyes, which were wide in shock, and her hands naturally went to the tiny protrusion of her stomach. Even though there were other people from the prison at the wake, he doubted that they would remember every song that Beth had sung. He remembered though. And so did Maggie.

This was what Maggie and him did, they found each other in those weird moments where Beth's presence was apparent. Only now, it was different because Beth was actually here again. The pregnant woman began to waddle over towards him; her gait had changed even though she was only a few months pregnant. Daryl met her half way across the room.

"Did you tell Angela to sing this?," Maggie half accused, half pleaded.

He looked at her skeptically and replied, "Course I didn't."

"I wonder if Beth remembers," she responded, looking at her sister distractedly. "I remember it so clearly, it's like I can hear her now." And Daryl could too, although he wouldn't say that out loud.

"You got to/ Hold on, hold on/ You gotta hold on/ Take my hand, I'm standing right here/ You gotta hold on," Angela continued.

Both Maggie and Daryl stared at Beth as she turned away from Spencer and towards the piano where Angela sat. The wide smile rolled off of her face slowly. There was a blank look in her eyes but it was accompanied by a profound wrinkle between her brows. Then, with a sudden snap of her neck, Beth looked directly at Maggie and Daryl. Her blue eyes were piercing and paralyzing. Daryl held his breath; his lungs were unable to take in oxygen under the weight of her gaze. The expression carved on her face was unreadable to him in the briefest moment before she turned and stalked outside.

"Do you think that means she remembered?" Maggie whispered in an exhale. In his periphery, he could see the brunette turn towards him with an open, hopeful expression.

"I… uh… yeah. I think it does," Daryl stammered in an equally quiet response.

/

**A/N:** UHHHHOHHHH! Did Beth just remember something?! What do you think? Leave a review in the comments!

**Thanks for reading!** Sorry if this was a boring chapter… I was honestly so discouraged after the lack of response to the last chapter that I didn't know if I was going to post anything at all...

Luckily, I have BIG plans for the next chapter. Someone goes missing, and someone new is coming to Alexandria. Gotta **follow the story** so you don't miss any updates ;)

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	25. Flag

**A/N: **Hiii Bethylers! Sorry the updates have been so sporadic, I am working full time, beginning my EMT certifications and prepping to take the MCAT so I have been swamped! However, this story is still on my mind all the time and I have BIG plans for it and I am excited to keep going. So if you stick with me, I promise it will be entertaining. (:

**Thank you to everyone who reads and favorites and follows. Particularly for those who are sticking with my story!** I love y'all! Extra shout out goes to those who review: Agni, hossfan, monicadixon, Mourisan, draegon-fire, Fuzzysocks2813, DarylDixon'sLover, Lily18AC, Avaleigh1, AutumnPriestess, Buffygurl077, Reignashii, mrskaz453, ReedusRocks and guests. Seriously, every single review is like fuel to me!

Companion song: "I Will Follow You" by Rivvers

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

**Only a few more days until the real show is FINALLY back on but for now, I have a nice LONG chapter! Enjoy! **

/

**Chapter 25: Flag**

Six fucking days.

It had been six days since she left Alexandria. And Morgan was infuriating him. Well, to be fair, everything was infuriating him.

"She's fine, Daryl," Morgan said casually over a bowl of cereal.

"You've been sayin' that for days but you can't possibly know that," Daryl almost shouted as he gripped the marble countertop. He was happy that nothing was sitting on the counter in front of him, because he probably would have chucked it arcoss the room. "She didn't take a damn radio, and you said she'd only be gone for one day but it's been six."

"She's safe," the elderly man insisted again, still irritatingly calm.

"I never should've listened to you! You stopped me from trackin' her down the first day, and then that storm came. Now there's not going to be any signs of her left out there to fucking follow!"

Michonne stood in the hallway, making no attempt to conceal the fact that she was staring at the two grown men arguing. He knew that she was trying to stay out of the fight, she was just there to make sure things didn't get out of hand, but she was going to get dragged into it now. No free shows for her.

"What do you think of this?" he said glaring at her.

"Beth's strong. Stronger than any of us, living behind the walls for two years," Michonne almost laughed.

Maggie and Glenn walked in the front door, along with Rick and Judith. They were in the middle of a conversation but stopped immediately when they looked at Daryl's face. He wondered what he looked like to make everyone fall silent immediately.

"Go upstairs and find your book, honey," Rick said to Judith. "What's going on in here?" he asked, turning on his law-enforcement-voice once the little girl was upstairs.

"Everything is fine, Rick." Morgan said reassuringly.

Rick doesn't take his eyes off of Daryl though and Daryl responds, "Everything is not fine. The two of you stopped me from goin' after Beth last week and after that storm last night, I'll never be able to track her."

"I'm sorry Daryl, it was a bad call. But Morgan says she's fine. She's got a lot of experience out there," Rick's face drooped into a bored expression. Like he was already sick of this conversation. Daryl had talked to him about it more than once during the last week, but his flippant attitude pissed Daryl off.

"What about you?" he shot at Maggie. Her hands wrapped protectively over her stomach when his rage was directed towards her.

"If Morgan says she's fine, then I'm sure it's true," Glenn interrupted, trying to take the attention off of his wife.

"Even if we wanted to go after her, there's not gonna be any trail left. Can't do anything but wait for her," Maggie spoke up too, not willing to just hide behind Glenn.

"Typical," Daryl snorted. This was exactly like last time Beth was gone. Maggie wrote her off last time and Beth got killed. All of them were doing the same thing now. Just leaving her behind, alone.

Rick was his one hope. The one person who might go out on a limb for him, he went out searching for Lori and Carl without a prayer, so he could understand Daryl's need to go out on a ridiculous search for Beth. "I gotta find her, I can't leave her out there…alone… again."

He fell silent. He couldn't believe that he just said that in front of a room full of people. Even though they all knew how he felt, he never thought he would actually say it out loud.

None of them spoke. The house was full of a silence so thorough that it felt as if there was an overwhelming crowd pressing in on them.

Finally, Morgan stood up, leaving his cereal bowl on the table and grabbing his stick on the way to the front door, "Come with me Daryl."

He hesitated for a moment, but he trailed after Morgan just to get the hell out of the house with everyone staring at him. As he walked next to the man, not saying anything, he began cooling down, his anger and embarrassment fading slightly with each step out in the morning light.

The night of the funeral, Beth had walked out of the house after Angela played the piano. He knew she went home because when he followed behind her a few minutes later. She was in the shower, he could hear the water running, so he sat on his bed to wait for her to come out and get dressed to see if she remembered anything from the song. He fell asleep waiting. And the next morning, she was gone. Apparently, she'd woken Morgan up and explained to him that she was leaving for an undetermined amount of time. She took weapons from the armory and Lucky was with her, but she didn't say where she was going or why. But now that Morgan was taking him somewhere, he thought maybe the man lied. Perhaps she did tell Morgan more than he shared with them initially.

They walked until they reached the western most building in Alexandria. It's just an empty house; no one likes living along the west wall because walkers tend to come from that direction so you can always hear the growls. The house is unlocked of course, and they don't say a word as they climb all three flights to the attic, and then out of the attic to the roof. Morgan climbs to the top, grasping onto the chimney for support since they are at the top of the slopped roof. Out of his top jacket pocket, Morgan pulls a small cylindrical tube. Upon closer inspection, Daryl realizes that it is one eyepiece of a binocular, the other part must've broken off. Nothing in this world was whole anymore.

Morgan peered through the eyepiece, making adjustments to the little knob on the side. "There," he finally said, pointing out into the wilderness.

He passed the eyepiece to Daryl and then instructed him on where to point it, "Two clicks North of the tallest tree along the horizon… do you see it?"

Daryl looked but couldn't tell what the old man was talking about, "Why don't you tell me what I'm supposed to be lookin' for exactly?"

"The green flag."

And then he saw it. The flag was small and somewhat triangular. It was a green that melded in with the tops of the trees, and the shape made it innocuous too. The entire thing blended in with the forest so well, that even with his trained hunter's eye he didn't think he would have seen it if Morgan hadn't pointed it out.

"She always keeps it with her. We have a routine. Did this all the time when we were out there alone. If we got separated, by a heard or by bad weather, we put our flags up to signal that we're okay," Morgan seemed pleased with himself for this idea but Daryl saw a big flaw.

"But if she put it up six days ago, how do you know nothing happened to her between now and then?" he accused.

"Beth puts it up every morning at dawn and takes it down every night. That way I know she's okay since she can get to it twice a day." This made Daryl feel slightly better. "It was Beth's idea actually. I know it's not perfect. But she needed a brake from this… place. She doesn't remember a time like this, with cities and neighbors and school. This isn't normal for her, it's all as foreign to her as the outside world is to the rest of these people."

Daryl nodded, he knew all of these things. He could figure as much, but it was comforting to hear someone else confirm how Beth was feeling.

"You can keep that until she gets back," Morgan said motioning towards the eyepiece still in Daryl's grasp. "Look out for her."

Morgan started back towards the window to the attic, and Daryl barely pushed out a grunted, "Thanks" before the man disappeared back into the abandoned house.

/

He walked along the quiet street with silent footfalls. The gray light of morning was just beginning to penetrate the air. Everything was cast in monotone colors, drowned out by the colorless nature of the pre-dawn.

When he clamored on top of the roof, he pulled out the binoculars and began searching for the flag. It was not up yet, but the sun was still several minutes from rising. Which was actually what he was hoping for. He kept missing her, arriving after Beth had already put the flag up or taken it down. She was safe, the flag told him as much. However, Daryl was hoping that by getting there early today he might actually be able to catch a glimpse of her climbing up the tree to tie the flag in it's safe spot.

But he waited.

And waited.

The sun came up behind him, tinting the whole world in the yellow shine. But now, it had been ten minutes after sunrise and the flag still was not up. His back had begun sweating from the heat of the sun hitting it. The eyepiece was pressed so hard into his face that there was a deep ring cut into his skin.

Time clicked by. However, when it was thirty minutes passed sunrise, he knew something must be wrong.

Beth had been gone for thirteen days and the flag was always up at sunrise.

He scrambled back through the window and his feet pounded on the pavement as he raced back to the house. The front door flew all the way open, slamming against the wall as he banged inside. "Rick! Michonne! Morgan!" he bellowed up the stairs.

Morgan came in first from the living room, already dressed and looking like he'd been awake for hours. Michonne and Rick were next, weapons in hand despite their half-dressed state.

"What happened? Is it the wall?" Rick was already headed outside while still latching his belt.

"Beth's hurt. The flag isn't up. I'm goin' out to find her." Rick actually looked relieved for a moment, happy that it wasn't the precious walls that were failing. Daryl looked expectantly at them. Waiting for them to do something, start a search party, pack some bags, anything. Morgan tore the binoculars out of Daryl's hand and raced out of the open front door. He'd never seen the old man move so quickly.

"Alright, we'll go out and get her. Let's get some food and weapons and then Abe and Glenn can get a truck," Rick said.

"I'm going out now. I can't wait for everyone else," Daryl padded upstairs and grabbed his backpack that he always kept packed with the essentials.

His crossbow was already on his back and there was a gun in his bag, but he decided to stop at the armory and grab an extra box of bullets. Michonne reached out, holding his arm for one moment, "Don't go out there alone. It's stupid and reckless. Just wait until we get everyone together."

"I won't sit behind and do nothing. Not again," he ripped his arm out of her grasp. "Morgan knows where to go, I'll get a head start and leave you signs from her tree."

When the front gate to Alexandria opened, his motorcycle roared beneath him like a wild animal and he took off. In the one rearview mirror he had remaining on his handlebars, he saw Isobel close the gate behind him. After a few miles though, he screeched to a halt. The air smelled fowl. It was sour and decaying so badly it would have made him throw up if he hadn't become so accustomed to the smell during the years since the world ended. Walkers were close. It had to be a huge group if he could smell them without being able hear them yet.

"Shit!" he cursed aloud.

He should go back to warn the city that a herd was on the way. But Beth was out there alone, who knows if she had been hurt last night. It might have been more than 15 hours at this point. Could she be bleeding out? Could she have been captured? What if she'd been caught in the herd that was making their way towards the town now? But if there were walkers coming, the city needed to prepare. Isobel was on the wall today and she was notorious for missing things because she brought old magazines and books up to the wall. She was even caught painting her damn nails while she was on watch.

"Shit!" He shouted even louder as he turned his bike around and began flying back down the road at over 100 miles per hour.

He got to the wall, shouted at Isobel to open it and rode on his bike straight over to the garage. As expected, Rick, Abe, Morgan, Michonne, Glenn and Maggie were all packing a car and pouring over a map.

"Herd's coming!" He shouted at his family over the continued grumble of his bike.

"Where?" Rick yelled back.

"Smelled 'em 5 miles west of the wall. Didn't see them yet so I don't know how many there are. But the stench makes me think it's an even bigger group than the one from the canyon."

"Glenn! Get the shooters together," Rick ordered. Glenn tossed the bag he'd been holding into the truck bed and sprinted off towards the houses of the eight sharp shooters that they put on the wall in emergencies.

"Go get Beth and then come back. We'll need you both," Rick said with a nod to Daryl.

Daryl didn't need to be told twice. He would have gone no matter what Rick said, but it was nice to have his best friend's blessing. So for the second time, he rode out of Alexandria. This time, no one was coming for back up. And he was leaving the rest of his family to fend for themselves against a huge hoard of undead monsters. While he flew down the highway, he let himself wonder where this herd came from. It had been more than a year since there was a large group of walkers this way. Even out on runs, they hadn't seen more than a couple dozen at a time. Now, in the last two weeks this would be the second group of over a hundred in the nearby area—first at the hospital now outside the city. Were they migrating across the country? Was it just a coincidence that all these walkers were in the area right now? Or was there a connection between the two herds?

The street had more obstacles in it as he got farther away from Alexandria, and to get to where Beth had been he had to take back roads he'd never been on before. There was a large congregation of destroyed cars next to mile marker 194 and he was fairly close to Beth's tree, he guessed it would only be a few miles off the road. So he turned the bike off and leaned it all the way on it's side—the side with the already broken mirror— and scattered some of the trash and broken glass from a nearby car over the bike. Making it look like just another abandoned vehicle.

With his crossbow in his hand and the pack on his shoulder, he started into the forest.

It had been close to an hour of walking until he found the tree where Beth had been tying the flag. The flag was ripped and dirty a few yards away under a bush. He picked it up and shoved it in his pack. This was not a good sign, but the most worrying part was the slew of footprints around the tree. Daryl counted at least nine different sets. They all took off in the same direction, further away from the road and Alexandria, so Daryl followed them. After a half mile he found one dead walker and after another quarter mile he found yet another body. They were both shot through the head, the person wasn't the best shot, because it took three bullets to hit their mark. He knew it couldn't be Beth. The remaining footprints were all human, which was clear from the regularity of the gait.

He started running now.

Daryl knew it was louder and would make him less alert to his surroundings. But he needed to get to Beth. Five people were going after her. Their footprints were almost on top of each other, telling him that they were following her path. He was actually relieved to see three walkers feeding on a man after running for another ten minutes. The walkers had come from the side, probably drawn in by the noise of the people he was now following or maybe they were drawn by the smell of fresh blood, the corpse was mangled and torn to pieces at this point so it was impossible to tell how the guy died. Before the walkers could even look up from their meal, Daryl had slashed his knife through their skulls. He didn't want to have to worry about them on the journey with Beth back through the forest.

And even though the signs were grim—four against one—he refused to believe that Beth died.

After almost another full hour of half-jogging, half-walking through the woods, he came to a spot with several unusual footprints. It looks as if the people had stopped here. The footprints showed that three people stood in a circle, maybe one had been pacing. Then, the triad headed off towards the North. Initially, he couldn't find any other footprints. And his heart sank into his stomach in fear. What if these men—Daryl felt certain they were men based on the tread and weight of the prints—had picked Beth up and carried her away? There had been 5 people coming into the small meadow, but only 3 sets of prints left.

He forced himself to slow down and look more carefully. Daryl made concentric circles, getting larger and larger around the meadow. And eventually, after several frustrating heart-racing minutes, he found what he had been looking for.

A small boot print.

It was Beth's and it was only part of a print. From the markings it looks like she had used a branch to soften the effect of her footprints behind her.

He found himself almost smiling.

She was covering her tracks.

Beth must have gotten far enough ahead of the group that they couldn't see her, so she grabbed what she could and hid her trail. This must have been why the men had stopped to confer. Her plan worked because the men had gone in the completely wrong direction.

But there was one piece of the puzzle he still couldn't figure out. There was one set of footprints missing. Where did the fourth man go that had been following Beth? There hadn't been any other bodies so he must still be alive. And his footprints clearly lead into the meadow, and then disappeared same as Beth's.

However, he didn't have time to think it through and followed her trail further into the woods.

If Rick, Morgan and others had been coming he would have had to leave a more obvious trail for them to follow him, but since they were preoccupied at Alexandria he kept his tread light.

Daryl was forced to slow down in order to focus on the small signs of Beth's trail since her footprints were obscured now. Eventually, he came across a small stream. He guessed at a direction and chose downstream. Several yards downstream he found two sets of footprints at the edge of the water. One of them was Beth's set. The other set was big—too big for a woman—but they weren't heavy enough to be a large man. Then he saw the blood.

It was fresh, still slightly red, and there was a smear across one of the rocks at the edge of the water. It looked like someone had hastily tried to wipe the blood off and just hadn't gotten all of it. When he moved the rock aside, he saw there was a lot more blood underneath it. The river was at a low point but with the clouds that were now swelling in the sky, it was clear it would rain soon, fill the river and wash everything away. Just in case the other men caught up to them, he pushed the bloody rock into the stream and got an even bigger one to cover the puddle.

Beth had clearly been here. She'd been smart enough to keep footprints and evidence near the creek bed where it would be cleared away. But she was bleeding, heavily. He wondered how much further ahead of him she could be. She must've been moving exceptionally quick despite her injury.

_Where did she go next? _

There weren't any footprints and Daryl figured she was smart enough to walk in the water so no tracks were left behind. But did she go upstream, towards the East, or downstream, towards the West?

He took a guess and started walking against the flow. It would be harder this way but this direction but he just had a hunch. After walking for about a mile, he finally caught something. A paw print.

_Lucky._ He thought with a sigh of relief. If Lucky was nearby, that meant Beth had to be close too.

So he set off at a run following Lucky's trail. Beth must have taken a different way but since the other men likely didn't know she had a dog, they wouldn't follow this trail. Just out of hearing range of the creek, he heard a twig snap to his right. He froze and lifted his crossbow in that direction. But when he saw black fur and a wagging tail coming his way he dropped his arms. Lucky bound out of the trees and stood on his hind legs briefly out of excitement.

Daryl reached a hand down and scratched his ears, "Happy to see ya too, Luck. Now where's Beth?"

His ears perked up at Beth's name and then he turned and shot through the trees. The hunter ran after him as fast as he could and he realized how out of shape he'd become during his time living in Alexandria because it was only a few minutes before he was winded and had a side cramp trying to keep up with the dog.

Happily, the dog came to a stop soon after that. Then, underneath a large tree, surrounded by shrubs. He saw her.

Beth was on her knees, covered in blood.

In a second, he inspected her injuries from afar. She was in a small tank top again, that at one time had been green. Now it was covered in mud, sweat and blood. A t-shirt, completely soaked red in blood, was tied around her rib cage. There were scrapes all over her, shoulders, neck, arms, and there were a number of rips in her jeans. However most of the blood on her didn't appear to be hers.

She was kneeling over a young boy that was about 15. He was easily as tall as Daryl but probably didn't weigh much more than Beth herself. The kid was mostly bones. But blood was spurting from a stump that was his left arm. Beth had made a tourniquet out a jacket and a stick, but the blood was still coming.

"Ya gonna stand there and stare or are you gonna help me cauterize this?" she barked at him without even turning around.

He didn't know how she realized he was there, but it didn't matter right now.

"It'll take too long for a fire to get hot enough," he replied but he began gathering sticks and underbrush anyway.

"No. Pull a bullet apart and get out your lighter, we're gonna use the gunpowder."

"Mark," she said to the boy, whose face was so pale it looked as if he was already straddling the line between life and death. "Bite this and stay quiet. It's gonna hurt like hell." Beth stuck a large stick in his jaw and Mark dutifully obeyed without opening his eyes.

Daryl's fingers fumbled with a bullet from the box he'd taken from the armory this morning but he eventually pried it open with his knife. Beth laid Mark on his side and Daryl carefully poured the gunpowder over the open wound. She soaked her last piece of fabric in water from her bottle while he did that. Then he handed Beth his Zippo from his front pocket and moved to hold the boy still. Daryl watched as the small woman in front of him took a big breath in, steadying herself. And then, she lit the powder on fire.

After only a moment that felt like an eternity watching this kid's arm burn, she staunched the flame with the damp shirt in her hands. The boy's jaw clench and then, it went slack along with every muscle in his body.

Daryl reached over and felt his neck, finding a faint pulse he confirmed, "He just passed out from the pain."

Finally, for the first time, Beth looked up and her blue eyes met his.

She looked exhausted and disheveled, but it wasn't like he had ever seen her before. Beth was tired and clearly in pain, but there was something missing in her expression. Daryl couldn't place it and right now, he didn't care.

"Let's see that wound," he said nodding at the bleed on her abdomen. She looked down in surprise, as if she'd forgotten it was there. She untied her own makeshift bandage and lifted her shirt. The cut was deep, going through all the layers of the skin, but it was just shy of penetrating fully into her organs. It was almost 8 inches long but he felt a weight lift from his shoulders, knowing that it was something she could heal from.

"I've got needle and thread in my pack," he said pulling it over from where he'd tossed it. He also grabbed a tiny, single shot bottle of alcohol. But when he went to pour it over her wound she stopped him.

"Clean his wounds first, this one isn't so bad." Daryl obeyed, cleaning some of the cuts on the boy but he saved a splash for Beth too.

She winced when he poured it on the cut but didn't say anything.

Carefully, with as steady hands as he could manage he stitched up her side. Daryl tried to move fast enough that she wouldn't have to endure for long, but slow enough that he didn't hurt her further. She gritted her teeth and didn't say a single word of complaint while he worked.

In the back of his mind, it registered that he had his hands on Beth's soft skin, could feel the lean muscles of her abdomen and the bird-like bones of her rib cage beneath his fingers. And the edge of her black bra was peeking out from the bottom of her shirt. But he tried not to notice it, tried to keep his thoughts focused on the task at hand.

Finally, he was done.

"What's next?" he asked her glancing around.

For the first time, he noticed the machete sticking out of the wooden stump with an arm lying next to it. There was a bite mark, flesh torn raggedly from the skin, just below the elbow. That must be Mark's arm. Beth cut it off to try to save him.

"Let's get everything cleaned up. I wanna be ready to move as soon as he wakes up."

So they walked around the little clearing and gathered their things again. Daryl pulled his spare shirt out of his backpack and tossed it to Beth.

She looked up at him, her expression soft and eyes widened a little in surprise. "Thank you, Daryl," she said with such sincerity it made his heart beat pick up in pace.

He shrugged and mumbled in response, " 'is just a shirt."

"Yeah. But thanks, for everything… For… for coming here," she sputtered. It was unusual to see Beth so lost for words. But it somehow made her more endearing to him.

Daryl was even worse with words so he just grumbled a quiet, "No problem" and he busied himself with digging a small hole to toss the arm into. He didn't want the smell of blood attracting any more walkers.

"Figured Morgan would cave and tell you about the flag. How far behind you is he?" She asked as she pulled his maroon shirt over her ripped and bloodied tank top.

Glancing up, he saw how the shirt engulfed her, swallowing her up and looking more like a dress than a shirt. Her muscled, tan colored arms poked out from the ripped off sleeves like little twigs on a sapling. Beth tied the shirt into a little knot at the front by her stomach. A smile tugged at his lips upon seeing this. It was something Beth used to do back at the farm so many years ago.

"No one else is comin'," he responded. He'd hoped this point wouldn't come up because he knew she would want to go to Alexandria and help against the herd.

"Why not?" she said with narrowed, suspicious eyes. She knew Morgan well enough to know that he wouldn't just leave her.

"There was a herd, big one, headed towards Alexandria when I left. Told them to stay behind and keep everything safe and that I'd get you on my own."

"Daryl, we gotta get back there!" She had taken a bag of homemade jerky out of her pack to each but was suddenly shoving it back in, along with the lighter and everything else scattered around.

"It took me hours to get here, gonna take even longer if we're trying to carry him," Daryl gestured at Mark still laying with a blood soaked rag under his head as a pillow.

"Can't just do nothing, sit around and wait. What if they run? How would you find your people again?" She was struggling to keep her voice down, not wanting to give their position away.

"So what do you wanna do? Sling his unconscious body on my bike and ride home in the middle of a rain storm?" he quipped sarcastically.

She sagged in defeat, "You only brought the bike?"

He nodded somberly, "Didn't think we'd have a guest."

Beth looked at him then like he was a complete idiot.

"What?" he asked.

She looked pointedly at Lucky, laying in the dirt with his ears up scanning the surrounding forest for noise.

It hit him.

"Shit Beth. I didn't even think about Lucky. Ran outta there so fast, and they were supposed to come behind me with a van… Fuck. We'll find a car, it'll be fine."

He was an idiot.

She leaned against a tree, one hand on the strap of her backpack, the other hand on her own crossbow. Beth glanced up through the trees and so did he. The clouds were getting dark, hazy gray and even though it was only afternoon, the light was already fading. "It's going to be dark in a few hours, it'll probably rain before that. We better set up a camp or something if we're waiting here," she said simply.

"You sit down and eat something, it shouldn't be too long till he wakes up," Daryl insisted.

/

The silence was full of unspoken questions, but it was still comfortable.

Familiar.

Sitting out in the woods, eating jerky and stringing a wire around trees with Daryl felt oddly normal. Certainly more normal than sitting around the dinner table with everyone else back at Alexandria.

"So how did you find Mark?" Daryl finally asked, starting with what Beth guessed was the simplest question on his mind.

"Group of guys caught up to me. Lucky was tracking a buck and he must've gotten too far ahead. They ambushed me at the tree. Came the other direction so I missed their tracks. Cornered me… all five of them," she looked mad, and he guessed she was mad at herself for almost getting caught. "But they were slow, malnourished and uncoordinated, only carrying knives and definitely didn't expect me to put up a fight. Still probably would have gotten nabbed if it hadn't been for Mark. He gave me an opening. During the fight, he turned on the guys. Stabbed one of them right in the leg. Gave me a window to get a good punch on the closest one to me, I think I broke his nose and shot an arrow in another one's shoulder. Then I ran. And so did Mark. Mark wasn't in good shape. He was the worst off of all the guys, I thought about ditching him but he told me that was 16. Been held captive by those freaks for months, usually… tied up at night and constantly under their watch."

"What the fuck for…" Daryl started to ask, but the question died on his lips as he realized the answer to his own question and balked at this.

He remembered, all those years ago the group of men he'd run into, the men who claimed people and objects as theirs. The ones who called dibs on people's lives. _'The little ones don't last very long out here'_, that guy had said to him. And he remembered their plan for Carl and Michonne. This group must have been the same breed of guys.

"Would've done the same to me. One of them caught up to us and stabbed me but Mark pulled him off of me. That's when the walkers caught up to us too, got Mark's arm. Eventually we got far enough ahead of the group that I could cover our trail," She finished simply.

The rain started then. And Beth made a waterproof tent over Mark's face with her jacket and some strategically placed sticks. She let the rain wash over her, turning her face up towards the sky as the cold drops clattered on her face, cleaning all the scratches she'd gotten from tramping through the trees and all of Mark's blood from her clothes.

When she glanced up, Daryl was slouched against a tree, trying to stay somewhat dry underneath the leaves. He was staring at her though. And in his eyes she saw a tenderness that she wouldn't have believed possible when she'd first met Daryl in that airport.

His eyes flitted away and she again felt a flutter of familiarity in her brain. But when she tried to focus on the feeling, it flitted away from her. Like a butterfly you'd attempt to snatch out of midair. The things that she suspected might be memories came to her a lot when she was with Daryl. He was clearly some sort of trigger. But it was like a screen that turned off immediately every time she tried to look at it. The same thing happened when she'd been listening to the teacher play the piano at Rosita's funeral.

"So did you find what you were lookin' for out here?" he asked her quietly, using the tip of his knife to pick at his fingers.

"No. It was stupid to come out here alone like this. I realize now that what I'm looking for is back there… with all of you," she could feel this truth sinking into her now. She hadn't known it until that very moment in the rainy forest with Daryl, that this was true.

If she wanted answers, if she wanted her normal to be something other than death and walkers, she would need to really try with her family.

Daryl just nodded his head once.

After two long seconds of silence, a rattling noise came out of the darkness from under the jacket on the ground to the right of Daryl. Mark was walking up.

/

**A/N: **Well, Beth has finally realized that her place is with Daryl and the others.

What did you think about the flag idea? What about Mark? Do you like him or no? When will Daryl finally figure out that Beth cannot feel fear anymore?

Side note: **please do NOT try to cauterize wounds at home, the method used in this chapter would work but it is extremely dangerous and should ONLY be attempted in a last ditch effort to save someone's life like this. NOT in today's word where you could call an ambulance**

Hope the long chapter was satisfactory for the time being! **Thank you everyone for reading/following. PLEASE REVIEW** (:

**Next time:** find out what happened with the herd at Alexandria. Plus, are these large groups of walkers a coincidence? Or is someone behind them? Will the family need to pick up and move again? Find out!


	26. Cigarettes

**A/N: **Ah! Who is excited by the first few episodes of 6B?! There are NO spoilers but anyone who wants to discuss the new developments please DM me because I love talking about TWD and 6.10 was one of my favorite episodes this season!

Got some different point of views in this chapter, review to let me know what you think! The first half of the chapter is slow, but there are some good Bethyl moments at the end ;)

Note: I did NOT edit this so I apologize for any spelling/grammar errors. I just wanted to get it out to y'all as fast as possible.

**Thank you to everyone who reads and favorites and follows! Every time I get a notification about a new one, it makes me so happy! Special thanks to those who reviewed: **AnimeRoxx, Reignashii, draegon-fire, AJ Granger, Agni, soniabell, DarylDixon'sLover, monicadixon

Companion song: "Every time I look for you" by Blink 182

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

**/**

**Chapter 26: Cigarettes**

He'd been in more near-death experiences than he could count or even remember at this point. Walkers were almost always at the forefront of his problems but if he could get out of this, it would be the greatest miracle of his life. However, it wasn't himself that he was worried about. Maggie, and his baby, and Judith all weighed heavily on his shoulders.

They came. And then more. It was a sea of walkers as far as he could see. He'd seen hoards of walkers before. But not in the last two years since they'd been in Alexandria. They'd been safe here for two years and he guessed their time was up.

Glenn climbed back down from the perch to confer with the others about what to do. Rick, Michonne, Carl, Maggie, Deanna, Abraham, Carol and Spencer all stood in the middle of the road.

"Probably more than I've ever seen at once," Glenn said as he jogged over to them.

He could see the tension in Rick's face ramp up. Rick knew all that Glenn had seen; they'd been together almost constantly since the very beginning. So Rick knew that this was serious.

"Deanna, get everyone unable to fight ready to get out. Take the bus and the vans, fit as many people as you can in there and drive. Herd's coming from the south, so head east," Daryl shouted and Deanna hustled off to gather her people. "Abe, take a team and head out back. Get the strongest guys you can and take the backhoe if it'll start—the gas doesn't matter—start digging more trenches; we don't have enough ammo so we'll need to lead them off. Carol head up to the walls use the walkie, be our eyes and keep shooting." She nodded but didn't move, whereas Abe was already up the block shouting for select people from his construction crew to follow him.

"Glenn, Mich, we're going out there. Gonna hit them from behind, keep as many away from the walls as we can and lead them away whenever Abe gives us the signal" Rick finished with severity but there was still a hint of a request. It was the most dangerous job, picking walkers off in close quarters like that. Rick was the boss, but he was fair and Glenn knew he was giving them an option to say no to the worst job.

"Maggie, I think you should go out with Deanna and the others—" Rick said and Maggie already started to protest. But he kept talking over her, "I know you're not gonna do that. So I want you to get the truck ready and wait in it. If the wall is breached, take whoever's around and get out. Carl go with her."

Glenn nodded his approval of this, making eye contact and silently thanking Rick for keeping Maggie close, but ready to leave. He knew his wife well enough to know she wouldn't leave on the buses with all the others while her family was still in danger. But this plan would keep her as safe as possible. Carl could be a sadistic mess, but he'd gotten better, more mature, now that he was almost eighteen. Most importantly, Glenn knew that the guy wouldn't hesitate to kill anything or anyone that was dangerous.

The group went to break up to head to their own jobs and Spencer asked Rick what he should be doing, but Glenn stopped listening. Glenn kissed Maggie fiercely and swiped a hand over the bulge in her abdomen. He didn't say anything, and neither did she. There was nothing to say. They'd lived in this world of misery and peril, and they'd learned that people you loved could get ripped away from you at any moment.

But they also knew that, in a situation like this, seconds mattered. Seconds could save lives.

He did spend one more second, with a hand on Carl's shoulder. The boy was just slightly taller than he was now, but it didn't matter. Carl nodded seriously in a silent promise to protect his wife and unborn child.

And then, Glenn jogged to catch up to Michonne and Rick.

/

Morgan stood on the top of the roof near the edge of the fence. He watched as people took their posts assigned to them by Rick and the others or piled into the vans. They were trying to pick the walkers off one-by-one, with bullets or knives. Then he saw the team that ran out along the sides and began digging holes. There should have been trenches dug long before this moment.

He shook his head. This would never work. There were too many walkers; the walls would give out long before they would make a dent in this herd.

But Morgan had an idea.

His knees creaked a little as he began trotting back towards the house. He rifled in his backpack for supplies and then down to the kitchen to grab a few other things. It was a long shot. But he had to try.

Pacing back out to the wall he came upon Spencer. The guy looked terrified, but determined.

"Hey!" he called out and Spencer turned. "Do you know if you've got any more of these?" Morgan asked as he gestured to the red metal tank in one hand and the bottle in his other.

"Yeah…" Spencer replied hesitantly.

"Run. Grab them and meet me up on the south tower," Morgan ordered.

He was climbing the ladder when the young man came sprinting towards Morgan with his arms full.

"Got 'em!" Spencer shouted over the growls of the walkers on the other side of the wall.

"Go over to the other tower, start pouring the lighter fluid on them!" Morgan instructed.

"This is all that's left! Deanna and Rick won't let us—" Spencer started protesting but the older man cut him off.

"Rick and Deanna aren't gonna have a city to lead if we don't kill off all of these walkers."

Spencer considered for another half second before nodding and heading off to the next ladder. When the bottle was emptied, spraying it on as many walkers as possible, Morgan lit one of the matches and tossed it down into the abyss of snarling monsters. He hustled over to the tower were Spencer was, Carol was still on the tower shooting at walkers that approached Rick, Glenn and Michonne from where they stood in the forest line. Spencer caught the matchbook and then threw a lit match into the other half of the herd. There was probably close to 200 of them along the wall, quickly bursting to a huge flame. The flames engulfed those doused in lighter fluid within seconds, fire spreading to the others quickly as the brainless biters moved towards the lights of their fellows flickering to their deaths.

Everyone else stopped what they were doing and watched the blaze. Rick, Glenn, Michonne and some of the sharp shooters on the wall took out stragglers but most of them were charring into a blackened crisp.

Luckily, the walls were metal so there was no danger of them burning, but Morgan watched the flames closely. When one of the bushes at the edge of the forest Morgan shouted down to Rick and tossed him the fire extinguisher. The leader put his machete down and then quickly sprayed the bush before the flames spread to the surrounding trees. This was why he brought the extinguishers with them. Because the forest was a vital part of the town's cover and their hunting grounds so he wouldn't let it burn down if he could help it.

After an hour, the walkers were nothing but a blackened pile of skeletons. Some of them still moved but Michonne put her katana through their heads from outside the wall. Glenn and Rick took off into the trees, and Morgan began climbing down the ladder.

The storm moved in quickly and raindrops began falling. Morgan was happy about that because if anyone else saw the flames they would assume that the rain put out the fire. Hopefully he didn't just lead more unsavory groups towards them.

Spencer came down after him with a huge smile on his face, "You saved our asses! That was amazing. How did you think of that so fast?"

Morgan shook his head lightly, feeling awkward under the young man's worshipping gaze. "We got through this attack but we're not out of the forest yet."

"What do you mean?" he asked as his face fell.

"They'll be back. People always want good things, things that aren't theirs. Jealousy is one of the only things that has carried over from the old world," Morgan responded as he started back up the street.

"You think people did this?" Spencer asked him with a line furrowing his brow.

Morgan just stared at the man. He was so naïve still, so trusting of others. It was amazing that he had survived this long. Duane came to mind then, he thought of his son, so young when this whole thing started, innocent and kindhearted. They'd tried to make it on their own and failed, but now Morgan wondered what would have happened if they'd found this place in the beginning. But he shook his head, trying to banish the sick feeling of failure in the pit of his stomach. No matter how many lives he'd saved, he would never make up for failing to save his own son. Today though, he tried to focus on the fact that he'd saved this young man who had lost his own father and brother. "You better go get your mom and the others. Take Glenn or Carol with ya."

/

It was the second time this month that she found herself following this man through the forest. Daryl was in the lead again, headed back to his motorcycle. Lucky was running through the trees next to them and Mark was in between. The kid was slow and looked like he was going to faint. However, they had to get moving so Daryl kept grabbing Mark's good arm and pulling him up each time he stumbled.

They saw the smoke over the trees, coming from the direction of Alexandria. And Daryl had seemed almost frantic.

She could understand, everyone he knew was there, that was his home. However, she couldn't really relate. Beth still didn't think of the others as her family. Even Maggie, she knew that they were sisters, but Maggie hadn't even really tried to speak to her since she'd joined them in Alexandria. Morgan was there of course, but she didn't worry about Morgan. She didn't really worry about anything and she guessed that it was because worry was so closely related to fear. Besides, Beth felt confident that Morgan could take care of himself. But Daryl had come out to save her this morning, so she felt like she owed him one. So they ran through the rain, which was now pouring, towards the highway where Daryl had left his bike.

Beth had a sense of familiarity again, following Daryl through the trees. She hated the feeling. It was like chasing a sunset, no matter how fast she ran towards the horizon it was always out of reach.

When they finally reached the road, they were at mile marker 102, so they had to back track several miles. By the time the group reached the cluster of abandoned cars, they were all soaking wet and the two men were panting heavily. Beth had never been happier that she ran everyday because she was hardly out of breath.

Daryl pulled his bike into an upright position. Beth tore open a car door and started rummaging through her backpack for something she could use to pry open the steering consol. The soaking wet hunter appeared in the passenger seat and handed her a multi-tool with a screwdriver head flipped out and she went to work on the car.

After minute, Daryl sighed loudly and said, "Let me try, Greene, we gotta get out of here."

It took Daryl only a few seconds to get the right wires out but the car didn't start. He tried three more cars while Beth looked on in awe at his speed. Finally, one started with a roar. The sound was drowned out by the storm, but she knew it would still draw any walkers nearby.

"Not much gas," Daryl said when she walked over to him.

"Do you think we have time to syphon it or should we just go?" Beth asked, glancing over her shoulder towards Alexandria. The fire must have gone out with all the rain but that didn't mean that they would be out of trouble.

"Gettin' dark, we better just go." His eyes turned to her now, when they stared at each other Beth realized how close they were standing. Both of them were dripping wet, she could see beads of water dripping off of the hair hanging in front of his eyes. She had an unexplainable urge to reach up and push his hair out of his face. But she kept her hands by her side. Beth could smell him, leather and sweat from running, mixed with the rain and the smell of the trees. It drew her in even closer. The scent of him was intoxicating and made her head swim. It was familiar, it made her feel comfortable and for the first time she felt like she had a home even though she was standing on the street in the middle of a wreckage of cars.

The rain kept falling on both of them and she couldn't tell how much time had passed but Daryl was staring at her like he was seeing her for the first time again.

Mark, who had been waiting in one of the abandoned cars, shuffled over to them and the spell was broken. Daryl took an exaggerated couple of step back from her.

She breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn't think straight when he was

"Ready to go?" Mark asked, opening the back door for Lucky.

"Yeah," Beth said hesitantly. She had only driven a car a handful of times. Cars were hard to come by and tended to attract attention of other people so Beth and Morgan tried to avoid them for the most part. However, Mark was incapable of driving and Daryl needed to take his bike back. So she needed to step up and do this. Mark walked around and got into the passenger seat.

"You remember how to do this?" Daryl asked her in a whisper. Although, he kept his distance from her this time.

She nodded. "I'll be fine. Just gonna follow you."

He grunted and said, "Honk once if ya need something."

Beth climbed into the car and watched as Daryl walked over to his bike, starting it with a thunderous growl. Vaguely she wondered to herself if he ever wore sleeves, but she guessed that his closet would be full of ripped shirts. She saw his arm muscles, slick from the rain, flex as he turned the bike around. But she told herself to focus and she looked at all the buttons inside the car and tried to remember everything Morgan had taught her during their driving lessons.

/

It was dark when they returned but no one was asleep. People peeked out of their windows as the group walked up the street. Everyone in Alexandria looked shaken and twitchy. Mark followed Daryl and Beth home to talk to Rick. Even though he probably saved Beth's life, he would still want to ask Mark "_the questions_." They came through the door and several people seemed to visibly sag in relief when they saw the group. No one hugged anyone though and this felt strange to Daryl. Beth used to be such a hug-centered, affectionate person so it was unexpected to see her as closed off as Daryl usually felt when the entire family crowded into the living room and front entryway.

But then Judith came barreling down the stairs.

She jumped right into Daryl's arms and began babbling about what had happened in Alexandria while he'd been gone that day. Beth couldn't understand most of the words she spoke but Daryl seemed to understand everything and he responded with follow up questions. She was amazed by how he was with this little girl, giving her rambling story his full attention even though he must be exhausted. And she was looking at him like he was her greatest hero, not even caring that he was still wet from the rain.

After a few minutes Daryl looked at Rick and nodded his head towards Mark and Beth, "Interview the new guy and get him over to the hospital." Then he turned to Judith and started up the stairs with her still in his arms, "Let's get you up to bed Asskicker, ya had a big day."

The hunter had the crossbow on his back still and the child in his arms. Beth heard Rick start talking to Mark but she didn't actually listen to any of the words. Her thoughts were bombarded with Daryl. She couldn't believe that man had come out into the forest to save her. He'd been watching the flag, left Alexandria alone, not knowing what he would meet, he chased her trail for hours and found a car to get her home. She thought at first that he was doing this because of who she used be—the girl she didn't remember from Georgia. However, as she watched Daryl today, taking in Mark when he didn't even know the man and caring for a child that wasn't his, she thought that maybe she had discovered one of the last good people left.

Maybe he was doing these things because he was a genuinely good person.

This thought made her smile. She was going to get to know her sister. But now, she wanted to get to know Daryl better too.

/

Mark ended up moving into Deanna's house. It was a giant house and it turned out that Deanna missed having a fuller house. She used to have two children but her other son died and now Spencer was much older and independent. Mark was still only 16 and after losing his entire family and being abused by those men for months, he needed some coddling. It was healing for both of them.

Two weeks after the attack many of the Alexandrians had fallen back into their comfortable routine. However, Daryl and the rest of their family had not. Rick doubled the number of people on watch, enacted an earlier curfew, stopped all supply runs past the first town outside the city, and focused efforts on the farm and the animals inside the walls.

Daryl had seen Beth around everywhere in the last two weeks. She had integrated herself into Alexandria's daily life fairly well. She worked on the walls early in the mornings, ran around the entire perimeter wall several times each afternoon with Lucky and sometimes Michonne or Carl, helped Rick and Morgan with the crops and began cooking dinner with Maggie every night.

At first, Daryl had seen the tension and awkward silence in the kitchen when he'd come home in the evenings. But by the end of the week the sisters had begun to connect again. On the seventh night, he came in to see Beth smiling and laughing with Maggie while she was cutting vegetables to put into a rabbit stew. Judith was playing with several hot wheels and was building a makeshift track out of books and other household items.

He stopped in the doorway and couldn't help but stare.

They looked like such a normal family, like something he would have watched on a television show years ago. Maggie, with her stomach bulging slightly and Beth with her hair piled in a messy bun on top of her head. Only if it had been a real movie, the woman wouldn't have skinned the rabbit themselves outside on the porch and Judith would have real toys to play with. However, seeing her like this reminded him of Beth at the prison. These days she always had scowl on her face and a darkness in her blue eyes like the sea in a storm. But that night, she had a sparkle in her eyes and there were laugh lines around her cheeks. This smile made his heart ache for a time before she had seen all the terrible things in this world today, before the governor had attacked, when she still had her father.

The sisters stopped giggling when Daryl came into the kitchen, but Maggie kept a light conversation going even when Daryl sat down on the hardwood with Judith. He knew that Maggie was doing this for his benefit because she kept looking at him when Beth would talk or ask questions about their shared past. Maggie told Beth lots of storied from when they were younger living on the farm—about Beth learning to ride a horse, about the time Shawn snuck out of the house how the sisters had stuffed his bed with pillows to trick Hershel.

Soon however, the rest of the family trickled in for dinner and the conversation stopped.

Beth had also started showing up in his daily activities. When he was on watch, she would sometimes come up to the tower. They never talked. He didn't know what to say to her and so he just kept waiting for her to explain why she was coming to see him. Instead, they usually just sat in silence while looking out at the forest around Alexandria. The silence was filled with tension of unspoken words but also was comfortable. She didn't come see to him every day, and on those days when she didn't show up Daryl found himself waiting for her and then incredibly disappointed when she hadn't joined him.

One day, she broke her pattern and spoke.

The blonde head popped up at the top of the ladder and he felt an automatic tug of a smile on his lips. Beth was wearing an old pair of blue jeans that day, they had several rips in them and he found himself staring at the patches of creamy white skin that poked through the holes. Her hair was tied in a long side braid again and her white shirt was clean but was clearly a size too big.

She handed him a pack of cigarettes. It was still wrapped in plastic and it was his chosen brand. He hadn't found this brand for at least a year and he couldn't believe she'd found this for him.

"Thanks," she said softly.

"For what?" He asked, confused about why she was thanking him after she'd just given him a gift.

"Coming out there to get me," she replied without making eye contact.

He just grunted in response and took the pack of cigarettes from her, being careful not to graze her fingers as he did so.

After several agonizing minutes of trying not to look at her legs gracefully propped up on the wall in front of her and ignoring how she smelled so good even though they used the same shampoo and body wash, Daryl decided he needed one of these cigarettes. So he opened the plastic eagerly and lit one up so he could focus on the burn in his lungs instead of Beth. He felt his muscles relax slightly and he knew it was bad how much he still craved nicotine. But it did help distract him slightly from the woman sitting on his left.

"I've never had one of those," she said with a smile looking the now lit cigarette in his hand. "At least, not that I can remember."

"Ya haven't," he said with confidence. Several years ago she'd told him the same thing when they were at the prison. Back then, he hadn't let her smoke because he knew her daddy had been watching and wouldn't have approved of it.

She stared at him quizzically, but then a smile broke across her face like the sun shinning through the clouds after a storm, "Oh I haven't, huh? And how exactly do you know what I haven't done?"

He looked over at her then, and thought about lying as he had done last time they really talked, but seeing her smiling at him in the sunshine he knew he couldn't do that again. So that's how he found himself saying, "Because of the 'I've Never' game."

Beth looked at him confused, as he took another drag.

"What is the 'I've Never' game?" she asked him with a laugh.

He found himself smiling too, "It's a drinkin' game we played once."

"We played a drinking game?" Beth looked astonished.

"Yeah," he said. And when she kept staring at him, he made an excuse, "Not a lot to do in the apocalypse and we were all outta Monopoly money."

"Do you think we could play again someday?" she asked him with such sincerity but he couldn't answer so he took a long hit on his nearly finished cigarette. Daryl flashed on the night they'd gotten drunk in the cabin. It was simultaneously one of the worst nights of his life and one of the best. Thinking about how he yelled at her, he was embarrassed and secretly pleased that she couldn't remember what a dick he'd been.

When he hadn't answered after several moments Beth continued, "Maybe you could tell me what I have never done before and we can cross some things off that list."

Daryl's heart sped up and he wondered if Beth knew what she was doing to him. He thought about things that she had probably never done, and he imagined

"Yeah maybe. You find the moonshine and I'll teach ya the rules of the game," he tried to say as casually as possible.

"Gonna let me try that cigarette too?" She asked jokingly.

It was almost to the filter now and he thought about giving her the last drag. But he shook his head, thinking of Hershel's disapproval, "Nah. It'll mess up your runnin' time and it's addicting. Started when I was sixteen, still can't get it outta my system."

"So you're just trying to protect me then?" she asked with some skepticism.

He half shrugged and then finished the last pull of his cigarette before stubbing it out.

The pair sat in silence for about 20 minutes after that.

Beth got up to leave with a small smile still on her face.

He kept his eyes focused on the tree line as she stood up, passing by him on the way to the ladder. Daryl couldn't stop himself from asking, "Beth, how'd you know?"

"Know what?" she asked.

"How'd you know about these cigarettes?" he motioned to the box sitting on the wall.

She stared at the pack, but then her eyes seemed to go somewhere else and it was clear that she was submerged in her thoughts. "I don't know how I knew. I just saw them and... I grabbed them even though I didn't know why. Been in my pack for about six months… I'm happy I finally figured out who they were meant for."

Her eyes lost that far away look but she wasn't smiling anymore. It was back to the same stormy look that he associated with the new Beth. Daryl wasn't quite sure what she meant by this. But if she somehow remembered his cigarettes, he was hopeful that one day she might remember him.

/

**A/N: **Hope you liked it! I'm sorry if there were mistakes, I didn't take the time to edit this chapter. This was kind of a filler chapter because I needed to resolve some things and I am setting up for some _one-on-one, intimate_ chapters with Beth and Daryl.

**PLEASE review let me know what you thought!**** Your reviews make me happier than Michonne with mints!** ;) How is the chapter length? Did you like the other POVs? What you think of the Maggie/Beth and Daryl/Beth developments? Some nice little flirtatious moments :D Is there anything in particular that people would like to see in the upcoming chapters?


	27. Storm

A/N: Back again! **Thank you to everyone who reads and favorites and follows! Particularly those who have suck with me through my hiatus. **

Note: I did NOT edit this so I apologize for any spelling/grammar errors. I just wanted to get it out to y'all as fast as possible.

Companion song: "Shelter from the Storm" by Bob Dylan

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

**/**

**Chapter 27: Storm **

The living room was silent.

Everyone was clearly thinking; although Beth wasn't sure which direction it would swing.

Rick sat the family down and they were all agreed about one thing. It was obvious that the attacks were not a coincidence. Some one was orchestrating these attacks on Alexandria and their people. Deanna said it was jealousy, Glenn said it was about resources and Carol seemed to think it was just bad people being bad for the sheer sake of violence. However, the motivations didn't really matter.

What was important was what they were going to do about it.

The question was simple: should they hunt these people down or prepare to fight on their own turf when these people inevitably showed up outside their gates?

One major problem with both plans was that they had no idea what they were up against. It was clear that their attackers were organized, that they knew the surrounding area and that they didn't care how many people died. Most importantly, these strangers were watching them.

They'd had this discussion once before, after Rosita's funeral, and they'd decided to stay put and wait for the strangers to make their move. It turned out that this move had been to direct hundreds of walkers to their front gates. It had ended up okay this time but that was lucky. It could have just as easily ended with the walls being overrun and their people scattered. They didn't have more gas to throw on the next herd of walkers. And since they hadn't gone on a supply run in weeks for fear of being cornered by these psychos again, they were nearly out of all the items that they couldn't grow or make themselves.

"I think Carol was right the first time. We can't sit around and wait for them to come at us again," Rick said when he finally stopped pacing in front of the fireplace. Carol looked satisfied, and simultaneously prepared to set something on fire.

"But we need to know more about them. Can't go into this thing blind," the leader instructed, trying to squash Carol's fury before it got out of hand.

"How are we going to do that? We don't know where they are and none of us have ever seen any of them," Spencer asked.

"We find them." Daryl stood up and Rick nodded his approval. If anyone could track these people down it would be Daryl. Even after all these years, Michonne was the only other person that had picked up any tracking skills and even she could only see the obvious signs. If these people were trying to stay hidden, Daryl was the one who could find them.

Beth stood up too, "I'm going with you." Then she looked down at Lucky, who whimpered at her side, and revised her statement, "We're going with you."

Daryl knew her skills; he'd seen her fighting walkers and watched her get out of some impossible circumstances. Plus, as much as he hated admitting it, having someone out there to have your back could save your life. So he nodded at her, silently approving of his companions. He tried to look neutral but he was suddenly pleased that Beth would be coming with him.

Beth and Daryl, both eternally prepared for disasters, moved to grab their already packed bags but Morgan stopped them.

"You can't leave now. We know they're watching us so you'll need a distraction before sneaking out," Morgan explained.

"We'll go on a run. We need to find more ammo anyway so we'll lead them away," Glenn supplied.

Tara started to protest, "But what if they follow us again? Spencer barely got away and Rosita was killed, we can't do that again."

"This time we know they're out there and we'll be on the look out for them."

"No, Tara's right. This isn't safe," Maggie spoke while jumping up from the reclining chair. Her belly was bigger now; a shirt that he'd seen her wear many times before was now stretched to the seams around her stomach. Daryl could see the fierce look in her eyes and was happy that he wasn't Glenn at that moment.

"We have to do something, Maggie. This was too close of a call. We need to take back the power, or we'll end up losing this place too," Michonne was calm and while everyone else was getting to their feet in argument, she remained perched on the couch. "I'll go with you Glenn, and anyone else who is willing."

"I'll come too. Saw some places we can check for weapons a few towns over," said Morgan.

"I'm coming. Need to get out of this hell hole and start fighting these dicks," Abraham said from where he stood at the window. Daryl was happy to see the man taking action, the last few weeks of Abe being quiet and restrained had been too weird.

Glenn nodded at Abe and Morgan but no one else said anything.

Carl sometimes managed to talk his way onto the teams but he knew better than to try this time. When it was this dangerous Rick would never let him go. Daryl was most surprised that Carol didn't speak up. And he felt certain that she was plotting something of her own. He would make sure to talk to Rick about that before he left.

/

They waited until the next morning before heading out. It was still dark outside when they opened the main gate to Alexandria. They made a big deal at the front gates, opening them and saying their goodbyes outside of the gate, they even wasted several bullets shooting down walkers that they should have taken down with knives. But Rick told them to be loud in order to draw the attention to the front gate so that Daryl and Beth could sneak out of the small gate in the back. There were three ways to get into Alexandria. Most of the citizens only knew of two entrances, both of which were big enough to fit a car through. However, the third, unknown gate was a tiny piece of metal that blended in perfectly with the metal of the walls and was covered by bushes on both sides.

Daryl and Rick were talking in whispers in front of Beth while they walked towards the fence. It didn't bother her, she felt certain that they weren't trying to keep her out of something but rather they didn't want any Alexandrians to overhear them as they went through town.

When they got to the wall they waited until they heard the shots and then gave it a few seconds, waiting for any of their scouts to move around to the front. Rick opened the small gate and Beth sent Lucky through first.

Before Beth bent down to crawl out, Rick put his hand on her shoulder to stop her.

"I know you've been out there for a long time, you know how to take care of yourself. But be careful. We'll need all three of you for this fight," he stared at her intently, for a minute she felt like a little kid under his penetrating gaze. Rick was strong but also acknowledged how much he needed the others and in moments like this, it was easy to see why people followed him.

The man pulled her into a side hug, and she tried to not stiffen at the unusual contact. However, after only a moment he let go.

"We'll be back," she said because she wasn't sure what else to say. And then she got on her stomach in the grass behind the bush.

Lucky was a perfect look out while she shimmied through the hole.

She searched the tree line for people watching them but stayed under the cover of the bushes while she waited for Daryl to follow behind her. It took a few minutes, Beth guessed that Rick was having a similar talk to the one she'd just shared with the man, but soon she heard a shuffling behind her. She tried to keep her eyes forward but she couldn't resist. Glancing over her shoulder, she tried hard to stifle the small laugh that escaped her lips when she saw Daryl struggling to fit through the hole.

"I ain't a damn comedian, Greene. Stop laughing and help," he grumbled at her. Even though his head was half-stuck in the dirt, he had obviously heard her.

She reached down, moved his weapons and backpack out of the way, before grabbing his armpits and helping to yank his hips through the wall. When he came lose, she fell in the dirt from the force of her pull.

"You're heavier than you look," she said with a laugh.

He froze, still on his knees in the dirt behind the bush. Daryl's blue eyes bore into hers, searching for something in what was now almost a familiar way. It was the same look he'd given her many times—like he was looking for something. But he seemed disappointed… another look she'd seen on his face many times. The smile fell off her face at his scrutiny.

"Sorry," she mumbled because it was clear that he was upset and she couldn't help but think that she had inadvertently insulted him.

"Nah, it's alright," Daryl shrugged as he began pulling on his pack.

She changed the subject to try to smooth over the awkward moment.

"Looks clear, but I think we should head around a little ways so we don't come out right by this entrance… just in case," said Beth going back into business mode.

The hunter nodded in agreement, and motioned for her to go ahead. The pair stayed crouched down and shuffled along the wall behind the bushes.

Two hours later they were on the outskirts of a tiny town. It had taken a long time, but they had been walking slowly in order to pay close attention to any signs that they were being followed by the strangers. There wasn't much in the town, but Daryl led her to a small sedan outside a shed.

"Wait here and keep your eyes open," Daryl said before hopping the small fence and pushing open the door to the neighbor's house.

Beth didn't question him. The blonde stood by the car with Lucky and tried not to shiver. It was mid morning now but it was still cold outside. Even in a long sleeve shirt, the icy breeze caused goose bumps to prickle on her neck.

Winter was already here it seemed.

After a few minutes Daryl came back out with a handful of car parts. He grabbed a few tools from his bag and began reassembling the car's engine. Beth kept her eyes on the surrounding area. It only took Daryl three minutes to put the car back together. Beth and Lucky got into the car beside Daryl and they started driving towards the city where they'd been attacked in the hospital.

"So how long have you had this car waiting out there?" Beth asked him.

"About a year," Daryl replied with a glance at Beth out of the corner of his eye.

"It was really smart to take it apart and hide the pieces like that. Was it your idea?"

He didn't respond, which Beth took to mean yes. She'd come to realize that he was terrible at taking compliments.

They fell back into silence—same as they'd spent the entire time walking here—which was fine with her.

The highway flicked by and Beth again thought of how stupid this plan was. She couldn't believe that they were going back to the place where Rosita had been attacked. The others thought it was the best location to start tracking from but she doubted this would work. It had been so long that all signs of their attackers had undoubtedly been removed. However, Daryl had agreed so she went along with the plan.

As they drove, the sky got darker even though it wasn't even noon. Beth wanted to turn on the heater but when she looked at Daryl, in his cut off sleeves even in the cold, she didn't want him to be uncomfortable if she turned on the heat.

"Packed you a jacket if you want it," Daryl said without looking at her.

She smiled as she grabbed his bag out of the backseat and pulled on the jacket that was sitting on top. It was too big on her but there was a fluffy lining inside which was incredibly warm.

_How does he always know?_ She wondered to herself.

/

When they got to the road, the van was still upturned but the belt with the nails was gone. Daryl opened the trunk of the van and noticed that the large he'd pack was missing. He always made sure that the cars had rope before going on a run because there were so many uses for it.

Someone had clearly come back here to clean up.

Beth motioned to Lucky and the large dog took off into the forest with his nose to the ground.

"Nothing to find around here, they're smart enough to stay on the pavement to avoid leaving tracks. You wanna go to the cabin and see if they went from there?" Beth asked after scouring the surrounding area for any signs of humans.

He'd been looking around on the opposite side of the highway for a trail but he glanced over at Beth now. When he saw her, blonde, braided hair still slightly damp from the shower and long legs bending over to examine the ground, he briefly forgot her question. The clouds were obscuring the sun, but he could still see her perfectly. A loud rumble from the clouds overhead shook him out of this trance.

"Yeah," he finally replied. "Don't we need to wait for Lucky?"

"No, he can always find me," Beth said climbing back into the car.

"Is he alright out there alone?" Daryl asked skeptically.

She laughed at this, and the sound was absolutely musical, "This world is all he's ever known. Luck knows how to survive."

They arrived at the small cabin a while later and even though Daryl knew it was only midday it continuously became darker. It was so cold that Daryl even grabbed a long sleeve shirt out of his bag. It was black and had snaps all the way up and there were several spots that had been ripped and patched back up again. Carol always took care of that for him, it was the one thing she still did that was inherently motherly.

Last time they hadn't had time to really look around the cabin. However, this time Daryl and Beth opened all the cabinets, checking for any clues about who stayed here.

The cabin was no longer in disarray.

The bloody sheets had been removed and the glass from the window that Beth had broken into was cleaned up. Kitchen cupboards were stocked with some cans of food and there was a two-gallon bottle of water as well.

However the biggest change was the complete lack of walker bodies outside. Daryl had been fighting outside, and he knew he'd taken out at least thirty of them close to the front door.

"What the hell is this place?" Beth whispered.

"Someone must've had a car to clean it up, wouldn't have been able to clear away all those corpses without a truck," Daryl said in answer.

"Probably a team," Beth muttered. "But it doesn't look like they are actually staying here." She ran her finger over the countertop, which was already covered in a thin layer of dust and dirt that must have filtered in through the small, broken window.

"If they're not staying here why would they bother to come back and clean it up?" Daryl grunted in frustration.

The pair remained silent for a few seconds, both lost in their own thoughts.

"It's a trap." Beth whispered. "They clean it up enough but still make it look abandoned. Anyone who comes along needing shelter would find it and hole up here."

He flashed back on the funeral home they'd stayed in three years ago. Daryl's initial thought then had been that it was a trap. She had believed in the good and wanted to make a new family with the person who lived there. But after what happened to Beth, getting kidnapped, he felt that his gut had been right.

"That means they're probably watching us right now," Daryl confirmed.

"So what do you want to do? Play into their trap and let them take us right to their leader or take our chances out there?" Beth asked.

Daryl threw the canned food into his bag and grabbed a blanket out of the closet. He left the water, not trusting that these people wouldn't have drugged it.

"I'm not gonna sit around waiting to get captured," he said as he closed up his backpack. "Call Lucky and let's get the hell out of here."

However, when he opened the front door, he saw there was trouble brewing. The sky turned black and the wind was shaking the trees violently.

"Shit," Daryl muttered.

Beth pulled out a string that had been hidden inside her shirt. He flashed briefly on the little heart necklace she used to wear all the time, but he could feel that still sitting in his own pocket even now. It was a dog whistle that she had attached to the strong.

While she was waiting for Lucky to show up, she started walking around the cabin. She waved Daryl over and pointed to the remnants of a footprint. The wind was howling now and she had to lean in close to talk to him.

"Do you want to follow it or should we go back?" she asked in his ear.

He debated this. There was no way to tell how intense this storm would get, so they really should go somewhere to get shelter. However, the wind and rain would ruin what little of the tracks was left behind. On the plus side, if they did follow now, their own trail would be destroyed too so there would be a chance the strangers wouldn't have a clue that Beth and Daryl had followed them.

"Let's follow it… but only for a while. We need shelter before this hits," he said with a surly look up at the black clouds.

Beth took the lead on the trail, keeping her eyes on the ground and leading them in the right direction. Daryl stayed behind her but constantly scanned the forest for signs of people. Lucky caught up to them quickly and the three of them followed the trail for about an hour before the rain started.

Instantly they were soaked.

Beth tried to continue along the tracks but after only a few minutes, the ground had turned to mud under their feet and the wind was so strong that branches were being ripped off of the trees above their heads.

Daryl grabbed Beth's arm, not wanting to yell over the storm.

He bent down to shout in her ear, "We need to find somewhere to hold up!"

She nodded and his face was so close to Beth that he could feel her wet hair tickle the side of his neck.

"Did we pass anything good?" Beth asked. He could feel her warm breath on his ear, contrasting with the freezing cold rain falling around them.

Daryl suddenly couldn't remember what he'd seen. The sweet smell of her mixed with the rain was intoxicating. He felt like he was suddenly drunk and had to stop himself from running his hands along the soft skin of her delicate neck.

"Uh… yeah. We should be close to a place that I know."

She nodded at him and he took it as a cue to lead the way. So they started running away from where the trail had been leading them and headed towards the little diner he'd seen once before. It was in the middle of nowhere, not even easily accessible from the highway and he had no idea how this place would have stayed in business.

They cleared the space together, working seamlessly as partners. They locked everything up securely, and closed all the blinds before falling on the linoleum from exhaustion. Running for five miles was hard enough but going against the wind and though the mud made it nearly impossible for Daryl. He looked over to Beth, who was tired but not coughing haggardly like Daryl was. Not for the first time he berated himself for not staying in better shape. He'd told Hershel years ago that being outside the walls always meant running, but he never took this seriously enough himself.

Beth started to strip off her wet clothes and hang them on the chairs.

Daryl tried to avert his eyes. He didn't want to stare at her.

She was barefoot in her jeans and only a wet undershirt. Her hair was still in the braid but all the little strands that had fallen out were sticking to her skin. Daryl tried to count the ceiling tiles in order to keep his gaze off of Beth as she peeled off her black jeans behind him. He kept counting to 3 before losing track and needing to start over. But it did prevent him from looking at the blonde because Beth walked back into view a minute later fully clothed in dry workout pants and a t-shirt.

"You need to get out of those wet clothes or you'll be too cold," she said to him.

The blonde had grabbed a towel from somewhere in the kitchen. It looked clean and Daryl thought it must have been the only clean rag he'd ever seen in a diner. She used it to dry off Lucky as much as she could.

Daryl just grunted in response because he wasn't going to strip down in front of her.

"It'll get close to freezing temperatures tonight Daryl, don't be stubborn," Beth scolded.

When he still didn't move, she began digging out food and water from her backpack and worked on opening the can of soup she had brought from Alexandria.

"Want it cold or should I make a fire?" she asked.

"Don't want any light in here on the off chance that those fuckers are close by and can see it," he said. Already starting to get cold, he stood and began rifling through his own bag for dry clothes.

He changed in the kitchen, keeping an eye on Beth through the small window but his body was hidden from view. After he changed he checked the kitchen for any salvageable food but everything was either taken or had rotted a long time ago.

When he came back out to the dinning area of the restaurant he found Beth stretched out in a booth under the window. Daryl thought this was stupid because of the violence of the wind still howling outside but he didn't say anything as he plopped down in the seat opposite from her. She handed him the can of food, which already had a good amount missing, but he saw that it was sitting on a restaurant plate on the floor. Daryl realized that it must be for Lucky. However, Lucky was sitting, facing the door as if he was on watch, so he hadn't touched the food Beth had laid out for him.

She noticed him looking at the plate and suddenly looked guilty.

"Sorry, I know I shouldn't take our food to give to a dog… but I can't stand the thought of eating without sharing with Luck," she explained.

Daryl thought of his own father who chose to buy beer instead of feeding his own children. But she would go hungry to share with a dog. He was overwhelmed by moments like this with Beth. Moments where this woman proved that she was still good on the inside even if she looked and acted very different at times.

Daryl couldn't tell her all of this though so instead he just said, "Nah, he needs food too."

They sat in silence, passing the can of food back and forth while they listened to the storm rage on outside. It was peaceful with Beth by his side but he could tell that she wanted to ask him something.

However, before she got the chance, the window above her exploded.

/

**A/N:** Thanks for reading.** PLEASE review **let me know what you thought!

**I have big plans for the next chapter but if there is anything Bethyl you want to see (smut or fluff or whatever) just let me know! **

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Plus, I have some stories for different fandoms in the works. Come see them soon! ;)


	28. Scars

A/N: Sorry it has taken me so long to update. I sort of felt like I needed a mental break from TWD world. But I am back and plan on doing some regular updates with the next few chapters!

I apologize in advance for any errors, I did not have time to edit or reread. I hate posting without looking it over because I am a perfectionist but I am trying to let it go :P

Companion song: "Fire in my Bones" by Fleurie

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

Enjoy lovelies! Leave a review to tell me what you think!

/

**Chapter 28: Scars**

Glass rained down on her and all she could do was cover her face and wait for it to stop. It didn't take long. Beth could tell it was over because instead of glass hitting her, it was freezing cold raindrops.

Beth grabbed her bow and sat up quickly while she saw Daryl doing the same thing out of the corner of her eye. The glass bits stuck in his shaggy hair told her that the window over him had broken too. She carefully stuck her head out of the window into the storm and strained her eyes looking for anyone or anything in the surrounding area. There was nothing that she could see through the thick, pouring rain but the black sky told her that the storm was only just getting started. She could hear the faint growls of walkers over the roaring of the wind outside.

"Let's get in the freezer," Beth said, trying to keep her voice down to avoid attracting the walkers, after she ducked her head back inside.

Daryl nodded in agreement and he started shoving the few things from the floor back into his bag. Beth pushed into the kitchen and checked the back door again. It was still holding up but it was just plain wood. The freezer door was made out of heavy metal and hopefully would stand up to the storm… or the walkers. Lucky followed her reluctantly into the walk-in. She could tell he didn't like the enclosed space. Lucky, similar to Beth, liked the freedom that large, open spaces could provide.

Daryl joined them after another second and closed the door with a quiet thud. It was pitch black inside the freezer and Beth's eyes weren't adjusted to the darkness. However, she could still tell where Daryl was. It was inexplicable; somehow she could just feel his presence in the darkness.

While she was sitting there, letting her heart rate go back to normal, she heard Daryl curse into the silence.

"Shit," he said and then began rummaging in his backpack.

"What's wrong?" Beth whispered.

"Can't find my lighter anywhere," he grumbled.

She reached into her own pack, which she kept meticulously organized, and pulled out a small lantern. It could squish almost flat because it had tiny LED blubs, and it a solar charger. Beth could still remember the say she found it. It was in a tent out in the woods while she was hunting, next to a stuffed animal and a child's decomposing skeleton. There was another, larger skeleton in the tent next to the kid but this one had a bullet hole through its skull. She figured the kid had died and then the dad had killed himself after he felt like he had nothing left to live for. She hoped the kid had died peacefully but she could not bring herself to investigate further. Beth always felt like scum when she looted from people but she figured they didn't need the lantern anymore and it had become a lifesaving source of light for her since then. Luckily she had left the solar panels out on the roof to charge before they went on this disastrous mission in the rain.

She turned it on now, and it was so bright in the bleak freezer that Daryl shielded his eyes.

He stared at the lantern with amazement.

"Nice find," he grunted under his breath by way of thanks. When Daryl turned around to check on Lucky she saw the dark stain spreading along the back shoulder of his light gray shirt.

"Daryl, you're bleeding," she kept the little lantern in her hand as she stepped over their bags to go to him.

Beth couldn't even see how big the cut was so she began peeling off his shirt before he'd even responded. Daryl nearly jumped out of his skin when she lifted the fabric, pushing away her hands and spinning around so his back was now against the wall.

"What do you think you're doing, girl?" he half growled and half shouted. But she'd never seen him look scared until this moment. In the few short months she had known him—or could remember knowing him—she had seen him kill hundreds of walkers and run towards trouble but right now he looked like a cornered animal.

She backed off a little, confused about why he was so upset all of a sudden, but she still insisted, "I can't see the cut with your shirt on Daryl."

"It doesn't even hurt, can't be that bad," he protested.

"I think you might need stitches. It's a lot of blood."

He tried to look at his own back but just ended up looking like a dog trying to catch their tail. After failing to inspect his own wound, Daryl stared into her clear blue eyes. Beth could tell that he was searching for something in her but she had no idea what it was. He'd looked at her like this before, like he was trying to read her mind. She hated these looks because his own dark eyes felt like they were piercing her soul and she tried not to squirm under his scrutiny. After a minute, or five, it was hard to tell, he sighed in defeat. His shoulders sagged and he turned around to face the wall again.

Daryl reached his hand up, grabbed the collar of his shirt behind his neck and pulled it up and over his head in one fluid movement.

For one tiny moment, Beth's full attention was on the dark tattoo on his right shoulder blade. But before his gray shirt even hit the floor, she saw why he had jumped away from her. The scars were not terribly noticeable in the dim light because they were white but so was his skin. However, once she saw them she knew she could never un-see them. His back was covered in them. Most of them were stretched out which told her he'd grown into them… meaning he must have gotten them when he was still a little kid.

Beth thought of her own scars. The scar on her neck from the gun shot or ones she got from fighting all made her feel strong, they were proof that she was a survivor. But the deep ones on her wrist, the one that were clearly self-inflicted, were different. Those scars made her feel weak and vulnerable.

_That must be how Daryl feels_, she realized. And she guessed that he probably hated feeling weak and vulnerable just as much as she did.

So she chose not to say anything about them. She stifled any apologies or comforts she wanted to say and instead she went straight for the large cut on his left shoulder. It was deep and bleeding heavily but luckily the edges were neat and even.

"I was right," she said with a steady voice. "You need stitches."

He didn't respond as Beth reached into her bag to get her first aid kit.

"What did you cut it on?" she asked, trying desperately to think of normal questions so she didn't blurt out something stupid like 'Who did that to you?'

"Slipped from the damn rain and clipped the edge of the counter," his response was low and hesitant but his shoulders relaxed and she suspected he was relieved that she was ignoring the scars of abuse.

Beth grabbed the needle and thread out of her bag and said lightly, "Sorry, all I've got left is red."

"Ain't plannin' on being in any beauty contests," Daryl shrugged as he glanced down at her fingers threading the needle.

The blonde took a deep breath to steady her hands before placing them carefully on Daryl's back. His skin was cold from the rain. It was amazingly smooth in the spaces between the scars and Beth could feel the hard muscles underneath the surface. She had no idea why her hands were shaking, it wasn't like she was scared, but suddenly she felt nervous. It was obvious what he had been looking for earlier—he had been looking to see if he could trust her. The weight of his trust was making her hands shake she realized. She wouldn't break that trust.

"This is going to hurt," she said. Daryl tensed again and she realized how stupid her comment was. He had obviously felt much more painful things in his life.

He let out a small breath of air as the needle bit into his skin. Beth didn't bother to make the stitches exact or pretty, she focused instead on finishing quickly and trying to be as gentle as possible.

When she finished she grabbed his shirt from the floor, which was already wet from the rain that had plummeted in through the broken window, and used it to gently clean off the blood all over his back.

Beth had the unexplainable urge to press her lips to a particularly terrible scar that ran directly across his spine, she could almost see the belt buckle impaled in his back. But she stifled the impulse to run her fingers gently over the scars and stepped away from him again.

"All done," Beth annunciated the words as she sat down next to Lucky. Her hands were still itching to soothe his pain so she grabbed her quiver of arrows and looked them over unnecessarily just so she had something to occupy her hands.

Daryl didn't say anything but he did grab a button up flannel out of his bag and shrugged it on.

They sat for an hour or more without saying a word. Beth pulled another can of food out of her bag and the pair of them passed it back and forth. Once there was a third of the can left Beth poured it out in a corner of the floor and Lucky inhaled it. Then they just listened to the storm raging outside.

"How long do you think it will go on?" Beth asked while she hugged her knees tightly into her chest.

"Dunno. Last year about this time it rained for five days straight," Daryl said. He looked over at her helplessly and it was clear that he did not want to be stuck in this walk in freezer for five days.

She guessed that it was nighttime already though it was hard to tell since they couldn't see anything from outside. Beth had pulled on the extra shirt she had in her bag but the rest of her clothes, including her jacket and small blanket, was still soaking wet from their run from the cabin earlier. She was freezing but she tried not to let her teeth chatter. Lucky was napping on her feet, with the dual purpose of keeping her feet warm and also making sure that she could not leave without waking him up.

"I'd give ya my jacket but I left it out there when that damn tree broke through the window," he jerked his head to motion out towards the main part of the restaurant.

She only smiled in appreciation, knowing that Daryl wasn't really trying to make conversation with her. Beth guessed that the man could go weeks without saying a word if he wanted to. Normally, she would have been perfectly content to sit in silence but today she was burning with questions. Only she didn't want to annoy her companion. After another hour with only the storm and Lucky's small snores, Daryl finally broke.

"I can practically hear your brain humming. Why don't ya just spit it out?" Even though his words were rude she could hear from his voice that he was smiling.

"I… uh… I was wondering…" she was suddenly tongue tied. So she decided to ask a different question. "What did you do before all of this?"

She thought it would be a safe question. She heard a ton of people in Alexandria talking about their old lives all the time. But Daryl's reaction clearly told her she had been wrong. Beth thought seriously about taking the question back because he was looking so stern but then Daryl laughed a little.

"What's so funny?" she asked, feeling like she was being left out of an inside joke.

"That used to be a hot topic around the prison, but I didn't do anything. I was just a waste of space," he said this but didn't seem too sad about it.

"You make yourself pretty useful around Alexandria now, huh?"

He shrugged and she knew this was his way of accepting a compliment.

Beth was still shivering despite being tucked into a tiny ball so she moved to lie down next to Lucky for warmth. She still hadn't asked him the question she wanted to ask him but judging by the continuous pounding of the rain outside she would have more time tomorrow.

"Do you want to take shifts or do you think we can both get some sleep?" she asked him even though her eyes were already feeling heavy.

The door was heavy and locked so walkers definitely couldn't get in. People could, of course, but she doubted that anyone was out in this storm without getting blown away.

"Think we'll be okay. Our tracks will be destroyed by now," Daryl said as he shuffled into a more comfortable position using his bag as a pillow.

Beth checked her knife and weapons were in reaching distance and then clicked off the lantern. The floor was getting colder by the minute but Beth ignored it and just tried to quiet her mind to sleep. She couldn't stop thinking about Daryl's back, wondering if it hurt even now like her scars sometimes did, wondering how long those terrible marks took to heal, wondering what kind of monster would have done that to a child. It would have been funny trying to picture a child-version of Daryl if the image wasn't marred by what she knew little Daryl had to go through. And based on what he was like now, she guessed he had to go through it all on his own. Beth could never tell Daryl what she was thinking; she could only imagine his fury and disgust at her sadness for him.

"Daryl…" she whispered, not wanting to wake him up if he had already managed to fall asleep.

"Yeah?" he grumbled back warily.

"Your… tattoos. What are they?" Beth asked. "Are they angels or demons?"

He was quiet for a long time before saying, "They're both." Then she heard him mutter under his breath, "Everyone is both."

The blonde nodded, even though it was pitch black and there was no way he would see her.

They lapsed into silence again but after a few minutes she heard his gruff voice coming out of the darkness, "Beth…"

She mumbled a small "Yeah?" in between chattering teeth.

"Thanks," Daryl said simply.

Beth wasn't sure what exactly he was thanking her for, but she had a feeling it was for ignoring his scars.

"Anytime," she said back, loudly and clearly. And she hoped he understood that she meant he talk to her about it anytime he was ready.

The pair was quiet and Daryl's breathing was even and steady. She tried to match her breaths to his but she couldn't because she was shivering too much. Beth lost track of how long she laid there trying to drift off but she heard a growl at one point and thought for a second that it was a walker outside the door until she heard Daryl shuffling. He grunted as he stood up and then plopped down next to her.

"Ya need to eat more, girl. Nothing but skin and bones and yer gonna freeze to death," he scolded. She knew he was kidding, she was more muscle than anything else but she was still tiny even with the lean muscle.

"What are you—" she was cut off when he grabbed her hip and pulled her into his body.

"Survival 101. Body heat," he quipped.

She had never really been this close to someone that wasn't trying to attack her. But her heart was still racing just like she was in a fight but for once she didn't have the urge to fling the other person away from her. Daryl was warm and she could already feel his warmth seeping into her own bones even though they were just laying side by side—hips and arms touching.

She looked over at him; her eyes had adjusted slightly so she could just make out the outline of his face. The hunter's eyes were squeezed tightly shut almost as if he was in pain. Somehow, he still knew that she was looking at him.

"Just go to sleep Beth," he commanded through gritted teeth without opening his eyes.

Beth smiled a little, lying between Lucky and Daryl she had warmed up enough that the long day finally caught up with her and she drifted off to sleep.

/

**A/N: **

Chapter entirely from Beth's perspective this time! I have read the reveal of Daryl's scars in a LOT of different stories but I can't remember ever reading it from Beth's mind so I wanted to try it from a new angle. And no, we will not re-read this scene again from Daryl's perspective (I get bored when people write the scenes twice from different perspectives, sorry!) so it is up to you to guess what our favorite hunter was thinking. ;)

I had a really hard time with this chapter so PLEASE REVIEW to let me know what you thought of it from Beth's perspective.

Next chapter: we will be introduced to some familiar, new characters from the show… **dun dun dun**


	29. Giraffe

A/N: Look at me updating so soon after my last one. (: This is a LONG chapter, just for y'all.

Shout out to all my new followers and favoriters! I am so happy you're reading, PLEASE review, I would love to know what the new people think!

**Special thanks **to all those who reviewed last chapter: Reignashii, Hasick, Str1der2015, the guests and of course DarylDixon'sLover who is always super supportive and reviews every chapter (you are amazing!) Happy to hear people liked the softer Beth last chapter, she won't always be like that—this is a Beth born of the apocalypse—but we will see her soften up in the near future… *****wink

#1 What did everyone think of the Season 7 trailer that premiered this weekend?!

#2 Who do you think will be killed by Lucille?

**Please review and answer because I am super curious to hear other people's theories! **

Companion song: "In the House, In a Heartbeat" by John Murphy

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plot of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

/

**Chapter 29: Giraffe **

He was exceptionally warm, not uncomfortable or sweaty but warm like he was laying next to a fire on a snowy day. It was so pleasant that he wasn't entirely sure he wasn't just dreaming. The smell of rain and peaches engulfed him and he knew he was dreaming about Beth again—peaches always reminded him of Beth eating them out of a jar back in Georgia. Daryl didn't want to open his eyes yet. He could tell even through his closed lids that it was still dark so he figured it must still be night.

Then he felt the thrum of a heartbeat against his forearm and his eyes flew open.

The hunter almost jumped when he looked at the position he was in. A small blonde was tucked up against his chest and it took a second for his brain to catch up with what he was seeing before he realized it was actually Beth. Daryl was laying on his right side, with his head resting on his right arm. But his left arm was slung over Beth and his forearm had worked its way in between her breasts—which explained why he could feel her heart gently thumping against his arm—his open palm was wrapped around Beth's shoulder under the collar of her t-shirt and that skin to skin contact made his hand feel white hot. She was breathing calmly and evenly so he knew she hadn't woken up yet. For that he was grateful. They had fallen asleep lying side by side but at some point they had shifted so that her entire backside was pressed against his front. They were so tightly wound together that they couldn't have fit a piece of paper between them. He could feel every curve, muscle and bone even through her clothes. Daryl realized that undoubtedly would mean that Beth would have felt his hardness pressed against her ass. He was again grateful that she hadn't woken up.

He'd dreamed for years about waking up with Beth this close to him.

And part of him, a big part of him, wanted to stay there. Appreciate this feeling of having Beth so close. Just go back to sleep, pretend he never noticed and continue being with her in sleeping ignorance.

But it didn't feel right. They had only slept like this to stay warm, he told himself. She didn't actually want Daryl like that. Hell, Daryl still wasn't sure he wanted this new, tough-as-nails Beth like that.

As his natural morning reaction calmed down, he shifted slightly. Not moving enough to wake her but just putting some space between them so he didn't feel like he was violating this girl in her sleep. Daryl felt a twinge of pain in his back when he moved and remembered the stitches she'd given him last night. He vaguely wondered what Beth had thought about his scars but realized that it didn't really matter what she thought now. It was too late. She had reacted better than he expected. Most importantly she hadn't badgered him with stupid questions about it like he knew the old Beth would have done. Although, he smiled a little when he remembered her unspoken invitation to talk about it if he wanted to. Maybe he did like this new Beth—some days it seemed like she was cold but there was still a warmth inside her when it mattered. His pants twitched at that thought and he berated himself.

_Damnit, keep it in your pants Dixon_, he scolded internally before easing himself completely away from her and standing up.

Lucky saw the movement and stood up too. He could just barely see anything since the freezer door still blocked out most of the light. But the dog was staring at Daryl like he knew all of Daryl's dirty thoughts about his blonde owner still sleeping innocently on the ground.

Daryl wanted to see how everything looked outside but he knew Beth would wake up as soon as he opened the door. Somehow he just couldn't bring himself to wake her when she looked so peaceful. Since she'd come back into their lives he'd never seen her in a vulnerable moment, it seemed like she always had at least one hand on a weapon even when they were inside the walls of Alexandria. Seeing her without any stress clouding her face or tensed to stab something at any moment was too good for him to disturb.

Lucky just kept staring at him though. The mutt walked over to where Daryl sat against a wall and let out one low whine. Daryl shot a glance at Beth but inexplicably she hadn't stirred.

"What the hell, dog?" he muttered.

Lucky whined again and kept looking at him.

After another few minutes where Daryl felt like he was losing a staring contest with a dog, Lucky evidently gave up on him and went over to Beth. Before Daryl could stop him, the dog nudged Beth with his nose and whined loud enough to wake her up. He watched as Beth's hand instinctively went for the hilt of her knife as she stood up suddenly. When she took in her surroundings, she relaxed her grip.

Beth glanced down at Lucky, who was staring at her now and she immediately nodded at the dog.

"Yeah, Luck. Alright," she said to him as if she was responding to something the dog said.

She looked over at Daryl, "You been outside yet this morning?"

"Nah, just got up when yer dog started yapping at me," he responded, though he really wasn't mad at the dog. He had just never had a pet so he didn't really know what Lucky needed from him. It wasn't even like Lucky was really a pet—the dog usually found his own food and water, didn't have a collar or anything—so it seemed stupid that the dog would need anything from him.

"Lucky and I are gonna go check it out," she said picking up her bow and quiver.

Daryl moved to get up to go with her. He knew she could handle herself but it was just second nature to never split up from someone you were traveling with.

Beth saw and smirked, "You gonna chaperone our morning pee, Dixon?"

He could have smacked himself in the head, he felt so stupid. Of course the dog needed to piss, they'd been trapped in a tiny refrigerator all night. Daryl tried to hide his incompetence by saying, "Hell no. I just wanna get out of this damn place."

When Beth opened the door, he expected a blinding brightness. Instead, he could see it was still fairly dark. For a moment he thought it was dusk and they'd slept all day, but then he saw it was still stormy outside. It was drizzling slightly but not wet enough that it would trap them in the diner another night.

Beth and Lucky wandered off and Daryl went out of the kitchen and into the front room. He saw a trail of what he knew was his own blood from where the glass got him and saw the tree that had collapsed on the side of the diner. It had crushed the booth that he and Beth had been sitting in last night and he was happy they hadn't been asleep out here when the storm hit.

Daryl went back into their hideout and gathered up all their stuff. All their clothes were still wet from yesterday and he cursed the moist, cold air of Virginia. If they were back in Georgia their clothes would have dried from the heat even at this time of year.

Light footsteps told him Beth was back and she grabbed her own bag.

"What's the plan for today?" she asked him.

"Keep heading along the way we were going before it started raining. Maybe we'll run into the people or something useful," he said before pushing out of the store and back into the rain. He hoped they would find something otherwise their whole plan was for nothing. Glenn and his team had gone out to provide a distraction for Beth and Daryl to sneak away, who knows if their group had gotten trapped in the same storm that hit here. If Daryl couldn't come back with information about the group that had been attacking them, he was determined to at least come back with something useful. He'd never once walked through the gates of Alexandria empty handed—even the first day he came with an opossum—and he didn't plan on starting now.

It took them a while to make it back to the last spot they'd seen tracks last night. Beth gave Lucky a small hand gesture and he took off running with his nose to the ground.

She noticed Daryl looking and responded, "I won't be able to find any tracks in this mess, can you?"

He looked around and she had a point. The storm had ruined all tracks in the dirt and the wind had broken so many trees and bushes it was impossible to tell what was done by a human or Mother Nature.

"Not a chance in hell. You think Lucky can pick up their scent or somethin'?" he asked feeling useless.

"Probably. He's pretty good at finding people," Beth answered darkly.

"He got a lotta experience finding people?" Daryl prompted. Normally, he wouldn't ask background questions like this but something about the darkness in her eyes made him morbidly curious.

"You have to know where people are to avoid them," she said as she reached in her bag for a bottle of water.

"Spend a lot of time avoiding people?" he eyed her while she took a large gulp of water. She licked her lips and Daryl tried to pretend he wasn't staring at them when she passed the bottle over to him.

"I'm fortunate, I had Morgan. He… values life and people," there was a softness in her face as she spoke about the man who had acted as her father for the last two years. "But most of the people out there are… too far gone. No one wants to give, only take. And they only value people based on what they can get from them—supplies, protection, sex," she almost spat out the last word. "Most of the people we met considered other humans just as disposable as the walkers."

Beth's words were laced with venom but her eyes were sad, there was a hopelessness in them that Daryl had never seen before in Beth. She was always so full of hope. Someone must have taken that hope from her. And he wanted to crush their skull into a million pieces. The water bottle crinkled in his fist and water came crashing all over his hands.

"Someone take those things from you?" Daryl's voice was shaking with rage and he foolishly tossed the water bottle into a nearby bush. He couldn't bring himself ask if someone had actually violated her.

"Plenty did… none walked away from it alive," she spoke with an eerie calm voice that contrasted Daryl's fury.

It didn't matter that they were already dead. Daryl wanted to hunt down their walker bodies, rip them to pieces and spit on their remains. He knew he was being ludicrous but when he imagined someone touching Beth against her will, all he saw was red.

This explained why she had become so much harder, colder and more distrusting. Before she'd been shot the worst person she ever saw in the apocalypse was the Governor and he had been mostly human still. The people Beth had met since she woke up in that fire truck… weren't human, they were monsters worse than the walkers. At least walkers were brainless and didn't know what they were doing.

He fought the urge to punch the closest tree trunk.

Beth was watching him with her brows furrowed and eyes wary.

"Beth… I… uh…" he sputtered. Daryl was trying to think of a reasonable excuse for why he was acting like a lunatic. He wanted to apologize—for letting her get taken in the first place, for being careless at the funeral home, for not realizing that she was still alive, for all the assholes who ever came after her.

But he couldn't.

So instead, he hoisted his backpack on again and started walking. He couldn't find the men who hurt her before, but maybe if they found the people who had been hunting the Alexandrians he could still beat the shit out of someone today.

/

Daryl's mood swings were going to give Beth whiplash.

Last night was a rare tender moment when he got up to keep her warm, this morning he had been joking around, then he got angry and now he was tromping through the forest looking like he'd swallowed a lemon. He kept throwing careful glances in her direction.

"You tryin' to bring every walker in a 10 mile radius down on us?" Beth hissed at him.

He was stomping so loudly that this was the eighth walker she'd killed in the last few minutes. Daryl had stabbed more than twice that many. He was using more force than necessary and was stabbing them repeatedly with his small knife. She couldn't feel fear but she was certain that Morgan would have told her that she should be afraid of Daryl in this mood.

He glared at her in response and banged another walker's head against a tree until it was nothing but slime.

She shot two more through the trees ahead of them and went to retrieve her arrows while Daryl wiped his dirty hands on his pants. When she got up to the walkers she noticed that these two looked new. They weren't as decayed and rotting as most of the others and their clothes were still in pretty good condition. Ignoring the stench, she bent down and examined the walkers. She even rummaged through their pockets. One of them had a small knife still attached to his hip. Beth grimaced but still took off his belt and removed the sheath with the knife. It was only two inches long—not much of a defense against walkers but she tucked it into her boot anyway.

Her gruff companion continued along their trajectory making more noise than she'd ever heard him make.

Now she was getting pissed off.

"Daryl! Stop," she whispered after him.

He didn't show any sign that he'd heard her even know she knew damn well he could.

"Daryl!" this time she sped up and grabbed his arm. He swung around to face her and for a split second she thought he might hit her. But his eyes calmed when they met hers. "Soon enough we will run into a herd if you keep being so damn loud. They're not going to keep coming at us only one at a time. If you wanna kill things or punch things, I get it. But don't bring a whole mess of them on us." She was staring at him but he still looked stubborn. "Not going to help any of your family back home if ya get yourself killed."

His face softened and she could tell she had defeated him.

"A'ight," he said taking a step back from her. "Why don't ya call yer damn dog back so we can see what he found."

"Luck will come back on his own after he finds something," she said.

"Then let's go get some supplies," Daryl grunted as he changed course.

Beth was amazed at how easily he knew which direction a town was. This time his footsteps were much quieter so walkers stopped interrupting their progress.

After a couple miles, they got back onto a road and followed it into another city. Beth read the signs for Purcellville. It was a tiny town but it seemed like it was still in good condition. They went into a Walgreens and after making sure there weren't any walkers Beth found a few useful things like single strip of gauze, sunscreen, and hair ties. It was all small stuff, the actual pharmacy section was completely empty but Beth didn't expect it to have anything left. Daryl was going through aisles behind her and he picked up stuff that she never would have expected like laundry soap, coloring books, and bottles of spices. Beth thought about what he was bringing and realized how different life at Alexandria was from the life she'd been living the last two years. They had laundry soap and she was just happy if she found a stream to wash her hands in once a day.

She tried to stifle a laugh when the surly hunter, covered in walker guts and mud, picked up a little giraffe stuffed animal. But she couldn't manage it and a giggle escaped her lips.

His eyes snapped up as he roughly shoved the toy in his bag. "What're you laughing 'bout, Greene? It's for your sister."

She stopped laughing. Maggie was still barely showing so it was easy for her to forget and she'd never taken care of a baby so she had no idea what they needed.

_Never taken care of a baby that I remember_, she corrected herself in her head. Maggie had explained to her why Judith had called her 'mommy' that first night at dinner. Maggie said she'd delivered the baby but been the one to feed, change, and care for Judith almost 24/7 from the minute she had been born.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh. It's just… well… I'd never expect anyone to have a backpack full of stuffed animals," Beth explained.

She heard him grumble something about "it's not full" and "just one damn toy" as they resumed their search of the store.

When they left the store, they continued along the main drag and she was again surprised to see how untouched the town looked. However, when she looked in the windows of every store and house, it was clear the place had been picked over pretty well. The grocery store had been cleared out so long ago that there was a thick layer of dust covering all the abandoned shelves.

"Got an idea, come on," Daryl said as he headed down a side street.

There were signs for various wineries and breweries this direction and she wondered if he was looking for booze.

It was well passed midday now and soon they were going to have to find a place to stay for the night. Beth took out her dog whistle and blew on it. She was surprised that Lucky had been gone all day and she wondered vaguely if she should be afraid for him.

Climbing the hills along the overgrown vineyards she heard growling.

She could tell that Daryl heard it too because he unsheathed his knife and lightened his tread from quiet to virtually silent. When they came over the next hill, she saw it. There were about twenty walkers all corralled into a small fenced area next to a winery. Daryl moved to continue down the road to kill them but she put a hand on his shoulder.

He turned to look at her and she shook her head while putting her finger to her lips.

Something didn't seem right.

She could feel eyes on her but she couldn't tell where they were coming from.

Even though she felt horribly exposed she didn't move from the street. She didn't want to alert whoever was watching them that she knew they were there.

"See anyone?" Daryl whispered as he dropped down to tie his shoe.

Beth was grateful that he'd caught on so quickly, he was trying to make it look like they stopped for a reason.

"No, but look at those walkers. All men and all recently killed," she didn't nod in the direction because she didn't want to give anything away.

"Yeah, and they were put in there, look at the lock on that gate," Daryl responded.

"What's our play?" Beth questioned, feeling like they were walking into a trap. "Turn back or keep going? Or make a run for it into the woods?"

"Don't know how many of 'em are out there…" Daryl mumbled. His knuckles were white on the handle of the knife and his eyes had narrowed into slits trying to think.

Beth hated the thought of going into one of the buildings. There were more places to hide and they could always put real walls between themselves and walkers. But not knowing the layouts or escape routes was too big of a risk.

"Run for it," Beth said at the exact same time that Daryl said, "Into the woods."

She smiled for half a breath, tightened the straps on her backpack and then bolted for the tree line.

Daryl's heavy breathing was the only thing behind her so she didn't bother to check on him. Until she noticed it was getting quieter. She turned around and saw Daryl had stopped with his hands on his knees. Beth pulled out the dog whistle and called for Lucky again while she made her way back to Daryl.

"Keep… goin'…" Daryl wheezed at her between gasping breaths. "I'll… catch… up."

"Don't be an idiot. We're stickin' together," Beth snapped though there was no real venom in her voice.

After a minute, Daryl started moving again. She let him go first, setting a pace he could maintain. It was slow for Beth but she knew that he wasn't used to going on runs everyday like she was.

"Next time… you go runnin'… drag my… lazy ass… outta bed," he complained between strides.

She almost laughed but just then, a man came racing out of the forest and knocked Daryl over. Daryl had been caught completely off guard. He tumbled onto the ground ungracefully and his crossbow skidded into the trees out of reach. The stranger turned to say something to Beth but Daryl spun and kicked the man's legs out from under him. The pair of men immediately began grappling. At first Beth thought it would be fine. Daryl had more than 40 pounds on the newcomer. But soon, Beth saw that the stranger was getting the upper hand. The man reached down and grabbed the hilt of Daryl's knife. Tossing it into the dirt thirty feet away.

Three walkers tumbled out of the trees from the same direction the man had come from. She groaned, but knew she needed to take the walkers out before helping Daryl. Beth jumped into the fray and tried grabbing the stranger's neck from behind. However, the man elbowed her in the gut hard enough to knock the breath out of her. He turned on her, leaving Daryl in a heap on the ground and tried to talk to Beth. She didn't give him a chance before she started swinging a punch at him.

"Stop fighting," the man said clearly.

"No," Beth spat through gritted teeth. Her knife was still in her hand and she swiped out at him with it. He easily gave one twist of her wrist and the knife slipped from her grasp. He tossed it into a nearby bush.

"I don't want to hurt you," he said again.

"Ha," she shouted with derisive laughter.

He his arms were punching out so quickly that Beth couldn't even get an attack in. It was all she could do to try to block and avoid his hits. As it is, the stranger got a few good hits on her and she knew she'd have bruises all along her ribs and arms. She noticed that the man had two knives on his belt and a gun tucked into his waistband but he never reached for any of his weapons.

That was until ten more walkers stumbled towards them. She didn't have her knife but she saw the man whip the knife out of the sheath and slide it up through the neck and into the brain of a walker in one smooth motion. He tossed Beth his second, smaller knife and she took out two more walkers. While she had preoccupied by only two walkers, the new man had taken out six more. She had no idea how he'd done it so quickly.

Daryl was back on his feet again. He took out one walker by smashing its head into a large boulder on the ground before reached through the man's arm to put him into a chokehold. The stranger was temporarily caught off guard and dropped his knife. Beth's adrenaline was pumping so she didn't feel any pain from the blows yet. But she took the time to catch her breath, thinking the fight was over now that Daryl had him. But remarkably, the man slipped out of Daryl's grasp. She had no clue how he could have possibly escaped. He elbowed Daryl in the nose and she heard the crack from here. Blood spurted everywhere and Daryl let out a string of cuss words.

"I told you to stop fighting," the man said again. "Please."

This time he put his hands up in a show of surrender. Beth still had his only knife and she thought about fighting him again.

This man had attacked them out of nowhere but he didn't use any weapons or seriously injure either of them. He was a much better fighter than either Beth or Daryl. They couldn't fight their way out. Maybe they could hear what he had to say and then talk their way out of the situation.

Inexplicably, she wasn't getting a bad feeling from this man.

She wondered if she should be afraid but looking at Daryl comforted her. Even weaponless with blood pouring from his nose, he didn't look scared.

"Fine," she said warily.

"Thank you," the stranger acknowledged. "I'm sorry for running into you. I was running from the dead." He motioned to the corpses lying twice dead in the dirt around them.

Daryl grunted loudly.

"Seems like you can take 'em just fine," Beth said narrowing her eyes.

She could see Daryl had pulled a rag from his pocket to stop the bleeding.

"Well, there were thirteen of them. Once it gets into double digits I start running. No point in risking it," he shrugged. The man's voice carried no trace of an accent like Beth and Daryl.

"If you were just running from them, why'd you attack us?" Beth quipped.

He let out a laugh, it wasn't malicious which made Beth even more wary.

"Your friend there was the one to throw the first punch," the man said.

Beth supposed he was right. It had all happened so quickly that she hadn't thought about that.

"You got a camp nearby?" Daryl asked. Beth knew he had noticed the man looked clean and wasn't carrying any supplies on him.

"Sort of, but it isn't nearby," the corner of his mouth tugged up.

Beth and Daryl met eyes quickly. This man might be part of the group that had been hunting them. Or maybe he was behind the fenced in walkers. Or maybe he was lying about everything. Beth shrugged at Daryl. She knew there was no way they would take this man back to Alexandria but maybe they could use him to lead them to his people.

"I'm Beth. And that's Daryl."

The pair of them looked good and haggard. They had plenty of supplies on them. Hopefully this man would just believe them to be nomads.

"My name's Paul Monroe, but my friends used to call me Jesus. Your pick."

/

A/N: Yay! It's Jesus. I know this time line is very different from the one in the show and the comics, but this is fanfic so it should be okay, right? For those of you who think it is out of character for Daryl to lose a fight—Jesus in the comics is a TOTAL badass. He takes down both Michonne and Abraham. So… I figured he would have the skills to take on Daryl.

To those of you who hate long chapters (I don't understand why but), I apologize. But I didn't feel like there was a good place to split this into two chapters (content wise) so you got an extra long one!

**Please review this chapter! I am really nervous to see what you thought. **

_Does anyone have any ideas about where we are headed with these villians? Who is their leader? What happened with Glenn and the others on the run? How will Beth and Daryl get back to Alexandria? __**And where the hell did Lucky go?**__ …. You'll find out soon. _


	30. The Hilltop

A/N: To any fans I have left: I am so sorry it has taken me so long to write again. Thank you for still following, and I love you! 3

This is a short chapter (and has NOT been edited/read over) but I wanted to get it out quickly. I sat down and planned so there are more chapters coming very soon!

_**PLEASE review to let me know if people are still interested in seeing where this story leads! **_

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plots of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

/

**Chapter 30: The Hilltop**

"Two-hundred people?" Beth exclaimed from the backseat.

The trio was riding in Jesus' car towards his community. He called the place "The Hilltop" and from the sound of it, the whole place reeked of the Governor all over again.

Jesus was sitting in the passenger seat giving Daryl directions and answering Beth's questions about his community.

"Well, the number has gone down recently," Jesus admitted reluctantly.

"What happened?" Daryl demanded.

"Been some attacks. That's why I went out today, following a few people that were seen after the last attack two days ago."

Daryl and Beth's eyes met in the rearview mirror. This sounded a hell of a lot like what had been happening at Alexandria. Daryl was still trying to figure this guy out.

Either he was telling the truth and the same assholes were attacking all the living people they saw.

Or Jesus was lying and he was leading them directly into a trap. It was entirely possible that this guy was feeding them a story in order to build their trust.

Jesus was observant and he raised his eyebrows back at Beth in the backseat—he didn't bother addressing Daryl directly because the hunter had not answered a single question since Jesus had come plummeting through the trees at them an hour ago.

"We've had some similar issues with our community," Beth responded cryptically. Daryl noticed that she never called Alexandria 'home' like he did.

"Like what?" Jesus asked.

"How much further is this place?" Daryl interrupted before Beth could give him any information about Alexandria.

"Just take the next right by that historical sign."

Daryl followed the directions in Jesus' little red car. Beth and Daryl had left their van back on the highway. It was far away from the community they were pulling up to now but it was nice to have a backup plan.

A whistle escaped his lips when the walls came into view. Unlike Alexandria, they were all made out of wood with spikes at the top. Even though they did not look as sturdy as the walls surrounding Alexandria, Daryl could not help but wonder how long it took them to cut down all those trees. Jesus waved at the person on watch and the gates slowly cranked opened. When they got out of the car and Jesus began leading the pair up to a gigantic house in the center of the complex. He was rattling off about the history of The Hilltop but Daryl wasn't listening. His head swiveled around looking for anything off about the place.

People were milling around doing chores like gardening and walking the perimeter of the wall. Most of the structures were makeshift, clearly constructed after the apocalypse started unlike Alexandria's large, lavish houses. The one thing that stuck out immediately was their lack of weapons. Everyone had small knives but Daryl didn't see a single gun.

This was a red flag.

His gun was easily hidden in his waistband under his baggy shirt. But Beth's clothing was far too tight to conceal her weapon. The gun poked out of the top of her jeans. For one absurd moment, he almost forgot where they were while he just stared at the small patch of skin that was revealed where her shirt was tucked above the gun.

Daryl snapped out of it when Beth turned to face him and caught him basically staring at her ass.

The blonde looked startled for a second, clearly expecting Daryl to be looking at their surroundings not at her. However, she just leaned towards him and whispered, "Definitely not 200 people here… where do you think everyone else is?"

He just shrugged. The entire community was actually pretty small. They had animals and a large area for farming but there was not nearly as much space as they had at Alexandria. Everyone must be living on top of one another here.

Jesus led them into The Barrington House to meet his leader but when they walked into a small office a thin older man was already flustered on his way out.

"Oh Jesus. Back so soon?" he asked, not even bothering to address Beth or Daryl.

"Yes, I ran into some people that I believe can help us. I thought you could talk to them," Jesus responded while gesturing behind him to the pair standing awkwardly in the doorway.

"Help us? No, no, we don't need anymore help," Gregory dismissed quickly. He was already pushing past Jesus, heading towards the door again.

"Gregory. I really think we should discuss this," Jesus insisted in hushed tones.

"I have more important things on my mind right now, Paul." The leader was rude now, voice dripping with disdain at Jesus' nerve to question him in front of newcomers. Switching from Jesus' chosen nickname to his formal name made it clear that Gregory was no longer having a friendly conversation. He turned on the charm and turned towards Beth and Daryl, addressing them for the first time, "I'm real sorry that Paul brought you all the way here for nothing. Since it is getting late, you are welcome to stay for the night. However, you will have to surrender all your weapons while you are at the Hilltop and in the morning, when you leave," he stressed that point clearly, "you will be allowed to have your weapons back."

Beth looked to Daryl who, without changing his expression at all, gave her a look that seemed to say 'why the hell not?'

So Beth turned on her own fake southern charm to match Gregory's and said, " That would be lovely. Thank you for the offer."

Gregory didn't seem to pick up on her fake enthusiasm, but gave her a genuine smile, "There is a spare room on the second floor, third door on the right. The bathrooms don't work but there is clean water in the kitchen if you need to wash or get anything to drink."

"Thank you, we got quite muddy in that storm." Beth giggled to add to the illusion that she of innocence she was building with Gregory before turning to leave.

"Ms.—" Gregory said quickly before she could snake out of the room. When the blonde turned back around to face him again, he wiggled his eyebrows at her "I didn't catch your name, sweetheart."

She tried not to show her distaste at being called _sweetheart_ by this man who didn't even know her. And luckily Jesus answered for her before anything rude came tumbling out of her mouth. "That's Beth," Jesus said simply.

"Ms. Beth, don't forget to leave your weapons here with me. They'll be safely locked away until tomorrow, I assure you."

"Oh, of course," she smiled as she removed her gun from her waistband, pulled the large knife out of the holster on her thigh and a small hunting knife from her hip sheath. Daryl, who Beth didn't have to look at to feel his fury brewing at Gregory's sleazy smiles, pulled the two knives out of sheaths on his belt and laid them on the table too.

"I'm the boss. And I'm gonna be needing that gun of yours, boy," Gregory insisted glaring at Daryl.

The hunter stared at the leader briefly and Beth thought for a moment that her companion might hit the man, but Daryl just removing the gun from his own waistband.

Neither Beth, nor Daryl gave up their bows and Daryl stared at the man, daring him to tell him to hand over the crossbow still hanging off his shoulder. But Gregory just smiled, "The bows too."

Beth gave an obligatory giggle as if she forgot about the bow slung over her back and smiled at Gregory. "Of course," she said as she laid the bow down on the desk.

She could hear a small growl come from the man next to her. But she flashed him a look out of the corner of her eye and he reluctantly dumped his crossbow down next to hers.

"We will get out of your way, I am sure you are a busy man," Beth said to cut the wroth tension that was building between Daryl and Gregory. The older man broke eye contact with the hunter and gave the woman a huge, white-toothed grin instead.

"I am busy now but if you need anything, my bedroom is on the third floor," the leader dismissed them with a wink at Beth and she rolled her eyes as soon as her back was turned.

/

Hours later, it was starting to get dark while Beth and Daryl were walking along a path through the little town.

"Seems like everything is on the up and up," Beth said after they passed a small pen with several piglets inside.

"Everything 'cept Gregory," Daryl responded gruffly.

"He's egotistical, only cares about his own skin, and likes being in power far too much," Jesus popped up behind them silently. Daryl was not accustomed to being snuck up on so he nearly jumped when Jesus joined their conversation. Jesus noticed the effect he had on Daryl and his lips turned up a miniscule, amused smile. "Sorry about that. He does not do well with surprises and you two were not the first one he got today."

"Everything okay?" Beth asked, while she continued their walk with their new companion.

"Our people ran into some trouble today but managed to capture some of the others from the group that has been giving us trouble," Jesus answered honestly.

"What're you gonna do with the fuckers?" Daryl thought of Rosita bleeding out while they were on that run weeks ago and suddenly wanted to hit something. He hadn't liked her when he first met her, but over the years she had become the tough little sister he'd never had.

"The first time we ran into the Raiders out on a run, they held guns to our heads while they raped and killed three of our women."

Beth stopped walking and turned to stare at Jesus while he spoke.

"The next time, we went out in larger groups. They still managed to separate us and lure us into a trap. Walkers killed 14 of our people, they shot 6 more, and only three of us got away."

Daryl thought of how small their group had been out on the run to the hospital and how lucky they had been to make it out of that hospital full of walkers.

"Let's just say that the colony has no shortage of terrible suggestions for what they want to do with the new captives," Jesus finished looking sad. Daryl noticed that the man didn't get angry, but instead he appeared disappointed. Though he couldn't tell if Jesus was disappointed that he hadn't been able to save his own people or if he was disappointed at the savageness of his own people when faced with this choice.

"Can we see them?" Beth asked with a fire burning in her blue eyes.

Jesus stared at the pair for a moment, before nodding and headed back towards one of the cabins behind the main house. There were two men with spears on guard outside the door but they moved out of the way upon seeing Jesus.

Just before they stepped inside, Jesus turned around to them again, "Look, I shouldn't be doing this. Gregory would be furious if he knew I was letting strangers in to see them before he has a chance to interrogate them. I know you guys have had your own issues with these people attacking your community so I want to give you a chance to talk to them before you leave tomorrow."

Beth walked in first and Daryl took one moment to calm his irritated nerves before following her inside.

Daryl's eyes adjusted to the darkness inside and quickly took in the room. Michonne, Glenn, Abraham and Morgan were all tied at the wrists to different corners of the cabin. They were all disheveled, one of Glenn's eyes was already swollen shut, Morgan had a long cut across his neck which made it clear someone had held a blade to his throat, Michonne had so much blood all over her clothes it was impossible to tell what was hers, but Abe had fared worst of all. His nose was crooked and bloody and there was a large stab wound in his leg that was still bleeding through the hastily applied dressing.

_No way in hell Gregory gives us our weapons back and lets us walk out after this. _

He had one full moment to think of how screwed they were before Beth lunged at Morgan, hitting the tied up man square in the jaw while shouting, "You asshole. You killed her!"

Jesus grabbed her by the waist and pulled her off of Morgan, but Beth kept flailing against his arms. Jesus dragged her outside. Once the other two were outside, Daryl resisted the urge to check on Morgan. But he just winked at Daryl before putting on a stoic mask again. The hunter shot one last look and a small shrug at his family before following the Jesus and Beth outside.

The small blonde was smoothing down her shirt and still looked like she was seething. Guards closed the door behind Daryl and he caught the tail end of what Beth was saying to Jesus, "—at the hospital, but I can't be sure of it."

"It's okay Beth, I am sorry about your friend," the man said with genuine sincerity. "Gregory will be down after dinner to speak with them, we will likely vote on what to do with them tomorrow morning. You could stay tomorrow to find out what we decide if you'd like."

Jesus looked to Daryl for a reaction, but he wasn't entirely sure what game Beth was playing. It was clear she had something planned and he did not want to mess it up. So he kept his expression blank, hiding slightly behind his shaggy hair.

"No. I think we should leave first thing as planned. Our people will be worried after that storm if we don't come home," Beth responded looking at Daryl.

He stuck to his typical response of grunting and Jesus seemed unsurprised.

"I understand. I would be happy to drive you back to your car tomorrow if you'd like."

"Thank you, Jesus," Beth said nodding.

"For now, you are welcome to join me in the main house for dinner. Some of the residents contribute to a group dinner for those of us who cannot cook anything except cans of beans."

"Lead the way," the blonde gestured.

So that was how Daryl found himself sitting around an old, colonial table surrounded by strangers eating cabbage, potato and pork stew.

He was itching to talk to Beth about what the hell was going on, why she hit Morgan and pretended that their Michonne, Glenn, Abe and Morgan were with these 'Raiders'. How the hell was he going to get his people out of here now? The longer he sat there, eating the flavorless stew, the more pissed he got at Beth. She was digging them into a hole. If they had talked to Jesus at the beginning, they could have sorted this all out.

_Thinking like a pansy now, Daryleena. Gonna talk through your problems like a woman?_ Merle's voice was right on time with the insults.

But of course, Daryl knew there was no way he could talk his way out of a problem like this—he was terrible with talking even in mundane situations. He was a punch first, ask questions later kind of man.

As soon as Beth's bowl was empty, he couldn't control himself anymore. He gripped her arm and snarled in her ear, "I need to talk to ya'. Now."

If she could have shot daggers with her eyes, she would have impaled him. But she kept calm and just stood up slowly, taking her empty bowl with her over to the large basin where an elderly man was washing dishes. Daryl followed her outside the large house and around the corner before she turned on him. She slammed him backwards against the side of the old, wooden building.

"What the hell are you doin' in there? Bangin' your spoon like a damn child throwing a fit. You want to get us caught?" She hissed quietly in his ear. Her fingers were digging into his shoulders and he could feel the wood hard against his back.

"Caught? Our people are already caught!" he hissed back. Trying to keep a hold on his anger.

"And what exactly were you gonna do about it? We're surrounded and Gregory wasn't exactly willin' to sit down and chit chat."

"And what's your great idea, girl? Gonna punch Morgan to death so we can take him out with us in a body bag?"

Suddenly Beth leaned in closer, wrapping her arms around his neck. He froze. One second she was yelling at him and now she was hugging him? That's when he saw three women round the corner, chatting idly about some shit Daryl didn't care about. It was dark but it would still have been easy to see the argument that had been brewing between Daryl and Beth.

"Play along," Beth whispered, her lips brushing against his ear.

He told himself not to react to Beth's lips on his skin. His face was buried in her hair. She smelled so damn good that he felt dizzy. Daryl reacted instinctively, his hands found their way to the back of her thighs and she let out a small yelp of surprise when he pulled her flush against him.

The women scurried past them quickly with a few disapproving clucks, but Daryl hardly noticed. He expected Beth to pull away from him immediately, but she stayed put. She was breathing hard against his neck. He tried to calm himself down, but he couldn't pull away from her because Beth was still pushing him against the side of the building.

After one of the longest minutes in his life, she pulled back slightly, dropped her hands from his neck and whispered, "I've got a plan Daryl. We'll get them out."

"How? We don't even have any weapons, Beth," he was surprised he still had control over his voice.

"Who said we needed weapons?"

In the moonlight he saw her eyes sparkle with mischief and knew he was in trouble.

/

A/N: Thanks for reading!

I know it was shorter than normal but I wanted to get it out to y'all ASAP since I have been MIA for so long. I am sorry about that, I got very busy with life things.

**PLEASE, PLEASE review! I would love to know if people still have any interest in this story or if I should just give it up. Each and every review is so motivating! **What does Beth have up her sleeve? Did you feel like I stayed true to character with Gregory and Jesus?

Side note, I have a TWD/Supernatural crossover story rattling around in my head, would anyone be interested in reading that? Or is there anyone interested in co-writing with me?

Thanks lovelies! See you soon! :)


	31. First Snow

A/N: The ending scene in this chapter has been planned since DAY 1 but I didn't know how/when it would fit it… however, when I sat down to write this chapter it just popped out of my head and onto the page. I am happy with how it will move the story along so I left it. YOU WILL NOT WANT TO MISS THE NEXT CHAPTER. Bigggggg things coming babies so make sure to follow this story!

Thank you for reading and extra shout out to those who reviewed: headtrip parade, WolfyLeigh, Reignashii, and SilvasPrickle. You all are so sweet, thank you for taking the time to let me know that people are reading. **_PLEASE review to let me know if people are still interested in seeing where this story leads! _**

Disclaimer: I do not own or have any rights to the characters/plots of TWD series. I am just a fan exploring the marvelous, macabre world Robert Kirkman created.

**/**

**Chapter 31: First Snow**

Michonne and Glenn were back to back in the darkness of their makeshift prison. Her fingers were almost numb from being tied so tightly for so long but she was desperately trying to undo the knots on Glenn's wrists before she lost all feeling in her extremities.

She used what little fingernails she had to try and pry open the ropes.

"Shit," Michonne said in a whisper when she felt warm blood slipping over her hands.

"Was that the last one?" Glenn asked over his shoulder. He must have felt her blood too.

"Yeah," she sighed in defeat. Now that her last fingernail had ripped down to a bloody stump, she was thankful for the fact that she had minimal feeling in her hands.

"You okay?" he asked, concerned as they shifted away from each other.

"Yeah, I'm good," she answered him. Michonne raised her voice loud enough for Abraham and Morgan to hear but quiet enough that any guards outside of their door wouldn't. "These ropes are too tight. What's plan B?"

"We're passed plan B, I think we're up to plan S for Screwed," Abe complained. Their captors had perceived him as the biggest threat after it had required 4 men to take him down, so now there was a thick chain wrapping his torso and arms to the bed post and duct tape keeping his legs immobile too. Needless to say, he was in a bad mood.

"Got any useful ideas Abe or you just going to shouting profanities like you have for the last eight hours?" Glenn asked him.

"I got nothing, man," the red head groused before turning on Morgan. "What about you Dr. Huxtable? Anything to contribute to the group?"

The older man hadn't struggled or come up with any new ideas. After Beth had come in here and punched him, he just sat still with a content smile on his face. "I told ya. We don't need to do anything. Beth will be here soon enough."

Glenn looked sympathetic and Abe groaned. Michonne was curious though, perhaps Morgan was right. From the interactions she'd had with the blonde since Beth had returned, it was clear that the sweet innocent babysitter was long gone. Morgan had spent the last two years on the road alone with Beth and seemed to have profound faith in her. She'd seen crazier things happen so she wasn't going to write Beth off yet.

Glenn and Michonne tried everything they could think of over the next few hours to get free. She had just started to feel her eyelids drooping from exhaustion when shouts outside the cabin woke her up.

The doorknob outside their room started to rattle and adrenaline flooded her system in preparation for a fight. There was a muttered, impatient curse in a gravelly voice she recognized and a few seconds later the door swung open.

Daryl pushed into the cabin and clicked the door closed quietly behind himself. He made quick work of Glenn's ropes and then passed Glenn the knife. Glenn cut Michonne and Morgan free while Daryl got to work picking the padlock that secured Abraham.

Michonne crept over to the door and peaked out. Their guard was slumped on the ground but she could see that he was still breathing, meaning Daryl had only knocked him unconscious. There was a bright glow of orange light across the compound and even from here the smell of smoke burned her nostrils. Michonne dragged the guard into the cabin and closed the door behind him, reasoning that if anyone passed this building they would assume the guard had gone to help with the fire and the prisoners were still safely tied up inside.

She heard chains fall behind her and then their entire group was moving in unison.

Without saying a word, they followed Daryl's silent footsteps away from the cabin.

He stopped abruptly when they got to a certain point along the large wooden wall. Michonne saw that there were small grooves that had been hacked out of tree trunks that made up the wall. "We're supposed to climb it?" she whispered to Daryl in the dark.

The light from the fire was completely hidden by the large house in the center of the compound.

"Only way out," he nodded. Michonne realized then that he didn't have any weapons outside of the small knife he had given to Glenn to cut their ropes.

"What about the other side?" Glenn asked, seeing the grooves in the wood.

"Don't break your ankle when you fall because I ain't givin' out any piggybacks," Daryl shrugged.

"What about walkers? Or what if they follow us. Going to take everything down with that one knife?"

"Still working on that," Daryl replied cryptically as his eyes searched the darkness.

"Sounds like the shittiest plan I've ever heard," Abraham scoffed.

"Just take the knife and start climbing, don't know how long we've got," Daryl commanded.

Glenn sighed loudly and tentatively began scaling the fence first.

/

Once Glenn, Michonne and Abe were all over the wall, and Beth still wasn't here, Daryl began to worry.

"Where is she?" Morgan asked him, staring in the same direction as Daryl.

"Went to get the weapons after we started the fire." Daryl's brow furrowed, "She should be here by now. Something must have gone wrong."

There was a quiet whistle from the other side of the wall and Morgan smiled brightly. He put his hands in the holes in the wall and began climbing.

"What the hell? You're not gonna wait for her?" He had to work to keep from shouting and being discovered.

"She's already over there," Morgan grinned down at him before disappearing over the top of the wall.

Daryl started climbing. From the top, he could see that the fire they had started was still ablaze but that the people of the Hilltop were feverishly working to keep it from spreading.

He suddenly felt eyes on him and he glanced around.

Jesus was 10 houses down but he was staring directly at Daryl.

It was a dark night but Daryl had no doubt that the fire would have lit him up easily for Jesus to see clearly. He expected Jesus to run for him, or to start shouting for backup, or to do anything to prevent him from escaping. But instead Jesus just nodded before picking up two fire extinguishers and heading towards the fire.

Daryl wasn't going to wait around to figure out what the hell Jesus was doing. So he dropped along the wall and joined his group. Beth handed him his crossbow and he checked that the others were armed as well.

Beth and Daryl ran in front, leading them back towards the van they'd left behind days ago. Michonne and Abe brought up the rear. They stopped occasionally in their running, usually whenever Daryl started coughing or Abe began slowing.

When the van came into sight about a half mile up the road, the group slowed to a walk with relief but Beth started sprinting.

Daryl didn't bother to keep pace with her.

He was exhausted, muscles and lungs burning painfully. But mostly, he was still pissed at her changing the plan.

She was supposed to meet them at the fence. Daryl had waited for her and that caused Jesus to spot him. Even though Jesus hadn't sounded the alarm right away, the Hilltop community could be sending people after them right now.

Up ahead, he heard a cry and saw the flash of Beth's blonde hair fall to the ground.

The whole group began running in unison again.

When they got to the van, they saw her being attacked.

By Lucky.

The big dog had knocked her to the ground and was covering her with kisses while his tail wagged happily. Beth was laughing and petting the furry dog. Lucky then went for Morgan, stretching on its hind legs to lick the older man's face. Morgan's bright white teeth shone in the dark and he murmured things like "Good boy," to the dog. He padded over to Daryl next and rubbed against his legs waiting for pets.

The entire group piled into the van and Daryl noticed the remains of several small birds lying under the car before hopping in the drivers seat.

The next day, after sleeping for a full twelve hours, eating enough food for two people, and filling in Rick on everything that had happened, Daryl was chopping firewood.

He really wanted a cigarette but after making the group stop at least a dozen times yesterday because of his coughing, he figured he should find a healthier habit.

Winter was coming so they needed firewood. Winters were brutal up here in Alexandria unlike anything he'd ever experienced in Georgia. And hitting things with an axe was helping him take out his anger.

That is until Beth came sauntering over, with Lucky on her heels and began helping him. She pulled the split logs from the block and tossed them in the wheelbarrow before placing another thick log upright for him.

Daryl hacked away furiously; getting angrier the longer she stood there acting all helpful.

"You wanna talk to me or just keep pretending you're Paul Bunyan?" She finally said, holding the next log in her hand instead of putting it down for him to chop.

"Not sure if it's a conversation you want to be havin' while I've got an axe in my hand." Daryl impatiently ripped the wood from her hands and began hacking away at it.

"Maybe you're right. You might hurt me or something," she scoffed.

Daryl looked up, irritated and ready to shout at how stupid she was being. But then he saw that her palms were bloodied.

"Shit, Beth," he dropped the axe to the ground and reached for her hands. She pulled away from him. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to… I didn't mean to scare you. Just let me look at how bad it is."

"Didn't scare me," Beth seemed thoroughly confused by the suggestion that Daryl hurting her while holding an axe could have scared her. But Daryl pushed this concern out of his head when she turned her palms to him and she said, "It's just a scratch."

There were a few jagged scrapes, but they were deep enough to bleed and had been caused by Daryl pulling the bark roughly out of her hands.

"Now that you injured me, does that earn enough sympathy points to get you to tell me what's wrong?"

He let out a long, exasperated breath. Guilt gnawed painfully inside his stomach, he had never meant to hurt her. "Just stick to the damn plan next time. Waiting for you for so long got us caught and I... we had no idea if you were in trouble."

Beth nodded as she wiped the blood from her hands off on her pants. "I'm… I'm sorry," she sputtered over the apology, still confused and defiant. Daryl almost laughed. It was so different from the meek, apologetic girl he used to know. It reminded him of the girl who yelled at him outside the moonshine shack. "Morgan and I have worked together for so long that he knows what I am gonna do before I do it. I never have to explain myself because he just… trusts me."

Her blue eyes were shinning in the afternoon light and he paled under her glare as she continued, "If you can't trust me… then I don't think we can keep working together. I'm sorry I changed the plan, but you should know that I did it for a good reason."

Daryl's mind went blank in a panic when she suggested that they shouldn't work together anymore. But he watched as she pulled several folded papers out of her back pocket and handed them to him.

Maps and hand written notes about the group called the Raiders that had been following the Alexandrians and the Hilltop people.

"It's everything the Hilltop knows about the Raiders. Figured it might be useful information." Beth had a cocky grin stretched across her face while she stared at his shocked expression.

"I guess I can learn to trust ya," he said with a shrug, trying to act nonchalant as her increasing smile distracted him.

Her smile was the same, but her eyes were different than he remembered… darker… as if they had siphoned off the shadows of the outside world.

Being with Beth made him feel like he was getting whiplash—some moments she was the same and other times she was so different that it made his head spin. She had become the best of both worlds somehow; still innocent enough to smile and yet dark enough that she seemed fearless.

Shaking off thoughts of her, he moved away from the now exceptionally large woodpile and said, "Let's get this shit to Rick."

/

Three days later, Beth was really happy that Daryl had spent several hours with the axe the other day. It was snowing now, even though Eugene's calendar said it was only November.

Maggie, Tara and Beth were gutting and skinning the animals Daryl had caught in the forest the day before. It was probably the last time he'd be able to go hunting for a while since the snow meant animals would be going into hibernation or at least would be less likely to be running around outside now. Carl and Enid were playing with Judith in the living room and occasionally big laughs would erupt from the room. Beth still was not accustomed to the wholesome family experience of games and laughter, so she was happy to have something normal to do like skinning squirrels.

Tara had still been upset about her friend Rosita's death, so Maggie had insisted that Tara get out of her room and come cook dinner with them. It was nice to have someone else in the kitchen. Maggie recruited Beth to help with dinners almost every night that Beth was in Alexandria.

And it was exhausting.

Maggie was always watching Beth out of the corner of her eye. Or would subtly mention things from their old life and then stared intently, as if she was waiting for Beth to react or suddenly announce that she had remembered everything.

Beth never remembered anything, of course.

Trying to grasp her memories was like trying to carry water with open fingers.

And it was tiring to see Maggie's perpetually disappointed face

So it was nice to have Tara to distract Maggie. Plus, Tara had apparently never met Beth before her accident so there was no pressure to remember or disappointment on Tara's face whenever she did something that "old Beth" never would have done. Tara just accepted Beth completely as she was now.

Tara was telling a story about her first day in the police academy, " I was the only female in the entire class so I thought it would be no problem to just walk from the shower to my locker naked but then I hear voices. It turns out that the locker room was co-ed, so all the guys come stomping in! So that was how I got stuck with the nickname 'Full Moon' for the rest of the year."

Two hours later after were finishing dinner, the entire Grimes family—she called all of them the Grimes family even though she knew almost none of them were related—was rowdy and excited. The snow caused hardships of course, like food and supply scarcities, but it also meant that the walkers were slower and that any people would have a harder time stalking them.

They apparently had another tradition that was very peculiar to Beth.

Movie night.

Beth was told Deanna had started this tradition at the very beginning of Alexandria. She wanted people to feel a sense of "normalcy" as she described it, so once a month families were encouraged to pick a DVD from the library and watch it as a family. She even saved bags of popcorn so each household would have one bag for every movie night.

She had been able to avoid last month's movie night by climbing up to the roof of Aaron and Eric's house last month, and they were too nice to impose on her personal space so the men had actually come and watched a movie at Rick's house last month.

Tonight, the Grimes family was getting settled on the floor and couches and chairs while Carol popped popcorn in the microwave.

She sat in the kitchen, on the granite countertop and was waiting for the ideal moment to sneak out. Maggie had picked some animated movie about two robots falling in love and the whole thing just made Beth want to gag.

"You should stay," Carol whispered from across the kitchen.

"Can't." She grumbled.

"Can't… or won't?" Carol challenged.

She glared, knowing that Carol had hit the nail on the head. She had no interest in snuggling up with the family and watching a stupid movie.

"I know this must be strange for you… I can't even imagine how strange. But it won't get any easier if you keep resisting," Carol reasoned, still keeping her voice low enough that the others couldn't hear it over all their chatter.

"Movies are dangerous," she started explaining but Carol just gave her a confused look. "Letting your guard down, watching movies, getting accustomed to showers and baking casseroles… It makes people weak and it will only be that much harder when we inevitably end up back on the road outside of these walls."

"That's what I used to think too," Carol admitted with a chuckle.

Beth seriously considered pushing off of the counter and ditching right now, but curiosity got the best of her. "What changed your mind?"

"Got tired of murdering people in cold blood. Decided it was better to go with the flow and live a happy life instead of constantly killing everyone I meet just for one extra, miserable day."

The brutal honesty of Carol's answer caught Beth off guard and she almost laughed.

"Out there, we were just surviving... In here, we live." Carol smiled stoically and her eyes had a far off look in them. "We're all going to die eventually. But I guess I decided I wanted to live a little first instead of spending every moment running and killing."

The microwave beeped and Carol moved to get the popcorn.

"There's a bunch of extra blankets in Daryl's old room upstairs if you want to grab one and join us," Carol said. Without waiting for a response from Beth, she left the kitchen and joined the group on the couch.

Beth contemplated for another few minutes, staring at the family from behind. Morgan was sitting in a large, plush chair. Glenn had his arm on the couch wrapped around Maggie's shoulder. Tara, Eugene and even Abraham were stretched out on blankets along the hardwood floor. Michonne was sitting on the floor in between Rick's legs. Judith was lying across Daryl's lap, curling a lock of her hair. Even Lucky had joined the mess and she watched as Sasha snuck the dog a few popcorn kernels. They all looked so content and… relaxed.

Suddenly, Beth wanted to know what it felt like to be relaxed… even for just one minute. She wanted to turn off her brain, to stop constantly surveying her surroundings, to do anything that didn't involve cleaning weapons or surveillance or finding food.

So she slid off the counter and went to the bedroom to grab another blanket.

However, when she opened the closet Carol described, something else grabbed her full attention.

Blankets entirely forgotten, she stared at the black leather jacket hanging on the back of the door. It was so thoroughly worn that the leather was softer than anything she'd ever felt. There was evidence of where the vest had been ripped and then carefully sewn together again. The golden wings embroidered on the back were the first things she could ever remember that felt truly familiar to her in this world.

She'd had dreams of following an angel through a forest since she woke up years ago.

But it hadn't been an angel.

And they hadn't been dreams.

It had been Daryl.

**/**

A/N: ***Runs and hides *** Sorry for the cliffhanger. (But yay! Lucky is back! I know people were concerned about him, but he was just waiting like a good boy for Beth to return).

Follow to find out how Beth reacts! Will she hit him? Will she run off? Will she get the rest of her memories back? Will she remember that she was in love with him? It hasn't been written yet so reviews might sway me in one direction or another ;)

**PLEASE, PLEASE review! (Totally not begging or anything.) I would love to know if people still have any interest in this story or if I should just give it up. Each and every review (good and bad) is so motivating!**

Also, if you are a Supernatual fan, or a fan of my writing, please check out my other story (TWD and SPN crossover) called "My Beloved Monster." I am really excited about that story and where it is headed so check it out!


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